


A dream is gone, but where there's hope somewhere something is calling for you

by manubibi



Category: Free!
Genre: Bad Puns, Blindness, Drowning, Future Fic, M/M, Makoto is straight, Near Death, Original Character(s), Sorry Not Sorry, Trauma, again sorry not sorry, also this is not about rinharu nor makoharu, basically this fic is as unpopular as it can get, not tagging Reigisa because it's a fic where they're exes so reigisa fans won't care tbh, oh and also past sourin, past reigisa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 49,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5439470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manubibi/pseuds/manubibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years have passed since High School finished for Sousuke, and things have not gone the way he'd hoped. In Iwatobi, Nagisa is dealing with his own disappointments and the lack of a realistic dream to pursue at this point. They meet at a kiosk by the sea, and despite each other's intentions they bond over all the things that didn't go their way at least as a starting point.<br/>Content warnings are in the additional tags, please read them before opening it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akira14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akira14/gifts).



Iwatobi was a never-changing landscape, even after roughly six years. At least Sousuke - a broad and tall young man with beautiful, sad teal eyes and a whole lot of shattered wishes - seemed to think so, after completing a brief round with his car through the central part of town where most of his high school memories focused. He had stopped by Samezuka Academy, saw a few of the staff members and teachers, had stopped for lunch to have a pleasant although somewhat painful chat with old pals. He had listened to the list of their accomplishments - families, job careers, travels, lessons - and silently compared to himself and his own bare life since graduating. Everything after that had been a wrong choice after the other, from the field of study in college, to his method of therapy - for his hurt shoulder.

In his opinion, even Rin had given up, after telling him that he would go on and swim towards the Olympic gold, but would be waiting for Sousuke as well, with his hand stretched to dive together towards their future. Yeah, actually, that future right now seemed to have turned into a huge empty black hole of uncertainty, and seeing how Iwatobi was not an exception to the rule - things would always move forward, even in this small town full of old people - made him slump down. He was twenty-five, and already exhausted of thinking things would happen someday and that he would be rewarded for all the efforts he had made to keep up with someone else. He could not help comparing, either, even though his therapist told him in every possible way that comparison would kill progress, and he did not need to fret, that results would come. But it was hard, if not barely possible at all, to think in those terms when for the last seven or eight years he had focused on a goal after the other stubbornly and had accomplished nothing that was much valuable in the end. The world was moving forward, and he was stuck behind watching it go, watching it as everyone else got to the last strokes and he still struggled to come last with a dignifying time. 

Of course, he was still young. Many things could happen. But still, wandering around Iwatobi did nothing but remind him of how much time had gone for nothing. However, some places awakened good feelings, like the cafeteria near the Academy, a small park where children would still play, the train station. Cherry trees near a small school… And then the ocean, calm, splashing against the shore, accompanied with the sound of spring’s wind, which whooshed soft and pleasant. Eventually, he decided to sit by a small beach kiosk for something to drink while gazing at the waves and people ambling along the beach, mostly elders with their caretakers or grandchildren.

After a few minutes of peaceful sipping on a light drink, however, someone particularly caught his eyes. A young man like him, toned but slim, blond hair that moved softly for the wind. He was holding a leash, easily, since his dog - a beautiful Border Collie - seemed to not be in any hurry to move forward. Could it be…? Sousuke got up leaving the glass back on the plastic surface of the kiosk, and quickly walked up to the male. He just wanted to make sure it was who he thought it was. And sure, he had changed a lot, maybe had had a growth spurt at the last moment, but he was still very recognizable, even though his hair was now longer, and his bangs always threatened to cover the entire upper half of his face. It had to be that friend of Rin’s, the one who never seemed to shut up a moment. It was pleasant to recognize one of his acquaintances here. But why was he? He told Sousuke about his plans once when their friends were all still hanging out together, and they all involved moving out of town or out of the country even, so why was he still at his starting point? Sousuke waved a hand, but Nagisa did not react, at all. He simply went on walking. Was he ignoring him?

“Hazuki!” Sousuke called then, waving again as he felt some embarrassment fill him up. Maybe Hazuki was angry at him for some reason, but the two had barely had a few chats and nothing else, nothing had happened between them. It confused Sousuke now. However, when he got heard, Hazuki turned his head, looking in Sousuke’s general direction.

“Uh, yes?” He replied, uncertain, halting his dog which stopped tugging after a few seconds, showing a glimpse of its jolly personality, just like its owner. “I know you, I know I do,” he added, his magenta eyes squinting.

“It’s… Sousuke. Yama—“

“Sou-chan!” Nagisa trilled, his eyes focusing on Sousuke’s face and his face clearing up with a wide, happy smile like summer sky after the rain. “What are you doing around here? How are you? How’s your shoulder?” He shot questions one after the other, not missing any of his own beats. Sousuke relaxed, still a bit confused by the initial lack of recognition, but brushed it off as distraction.

“Uh, I’m fine,” Sousuke replied, kind of mechanically, because it was easier to tell people that than telling them he was almost disabled and his only wish in life had been swimming to the very highest levels. “I’m here to see my family,” he said. It was kind of true, anyway. Nagisa tilted his head, now looking directly at Sousuke’s lips, but then smiled with a little nod.

“I see. Wanna grab a drink together? You should tell me all about what you’ve done since school! It’s been a while since I last met someone from Samezuka,” he proposed. “I won’t accept no for an answer,” he added winking. He never did, and Sousuke hadn’t known him enough to learn that, but he had perceived that by intuition. Well, he had wanted to meet Nagisa - why, even? - and now he guessed he should have this encounter that was surely going to be very uncomfortable. Filled with comparisons. _Just what I need_ , he thought.

“So, what are you doing now?” Nagisa asked eagerly, leaned on the small kiosk’s table, and was so close Sousuke had to pull back a little with his whole body.

“Well… a bit of this and that I guess,” he replied vaguely, to which Nagisa responded with a blink and an equally vague hum, only to comment, “well, that sounds fun.” He obviously noticed Sousuke was holding something back, maybe it was because of embarrassment. He _looked_ down at his dog, petting him quietly and praising him for being such a good boy, sitting down without starting to pull. Which was the norm anyway, but Nagisa loved the animal so much he felt like praising it incessantly, and he received an equal amount of affection.

“What about you?” The older asked after a few seconds, desperately trying to not let silence settle between them. He hated that. And he hated having to talk to feel more at ease.

“I’m blind now,” Nagisa said in a matter-of-fact tone, and shrugged. “So, well, my options are a bit narrower than before, but I do some of this and that too when I can be useful, like sometimes I baby-sit and stuff.”

 _Blind_? Sousuke stared at him with his eyes going wide. Nobody had told him Hazuki had gone blind. What?!

“What?” He voiced with a shocked tone to his voice, and Nagisa giggled, a bit amused. In a childish way, one fun thing was telling people in the most nonchalant way and hear the surprise in their voice.

“Well, I was kind of stupid. I was baby-sitting on the beach one time when the sky was all grey because one of the neighbors’ kids really wanted me to play with him so we flew a kite together and, you know, then he wanted to go swimming in the Ocean, and then a storm came and I dived right in instead of calling for help, so…” He started, and bit softly on his lip realizing he had began the story, it was only right to finish it. “He ended up being okay, but I got smashed on a rock by a wave at some point. I don’t remember what happened exactly, probably because I got a concussion and passed out. And I almost drowned to the point that my eye nerves stopped receiving oxygen and stopped working so… that’s how I lost my sight,” he ended with a shrug that didn’t mean anything aside from feigning indifference. “I guess I should’ve done the smart thing and at least call for help before diving in,” he added, with his eyes darting away which was clearly out of embarrassment despite the fact that he wanted to play it cool. And the memory of how it felt, passing out in the middle of the Ocean, was a really scary, unpleasant one.

“Well, you _were_ an idiot,” Sousuke agreed, blunt. “But that sucks.”

Nagisa hummed. “It’s a good thing Rei-chan was there and immediately called for help, because the Doctors said I could easily have died,” he mentioned, again, lightly but with a slightly sadder tone.

“ _Shit_ ,” Sousuke muttered softly, with his guts sinking.

“Yeah, so now basically I just avoid the Ocean entirely,” Nagisa concluded, curt, with a little smile although it was a nervous one. Sousuke stared at him for a few seconds, and then puffed air out, relaxing despite himself.

“Well, wow, that was unexpected. I didn’t know, nobody told me,” he replied.

“Ah, it’s fine. Why should they? We barely know each other anyway,” Nagisa swatted that concern away like dust. “So really, what’s going on with you?” He continued, anxious to switch the topic.

“Uh, well…” Sousuke began, still concerned by what he had just heard, but cleared his throat and accepted to talk about himself, finally. Maybe it was because both of them clearly wanted to talk about something else, and now he knew Nagisa could understand so he would not judge him or be weird with him for being at least partially disabled. And since both of them had lost something because after all they had caused their own trouble, in different ways and degrees.

After all, Sousuke had mostly ignored his shoulder’s warning pains, had pushed himself to the point of breaking, and now he was dealing with it because he had deemed the end more important than himself. For a moment he had felt invincible, and then had shattered. Now he was, slowly, trying to pick up all the fragments of a dream that had crashed down, hard, on a sturdy floor. He told Nagisa about the therapy and how he had stubbornly kept overworking himself even after his shoulder had collapsed several times, how Rin’s promise that he would be waiting had motivated Sousuke, again, to the point of self-destruction. And Nagisa listened. He did not offer some cheap sympathy, he nodded and squinted and even smiled a little at the sweetness Sousuke projected onto every memory he had of Rin and the old swim team. He definitely still had some very sweet feelings about his friends.

Soon they ended up reminiscing, as it happens with old acquaintances especially when they don’t share much besides some fragments of their past. They teased one another about their past races and exchanged compliments about it, in a pleasant nostalgic atmosphere. Before they knew it, cold was quietly wrapping them up in little shivers and the evening was announcing its arrival.

“Well… I guess we should go home, huh?” Sousuke finally hinted after some calm few seconds of silence spent looking at the sky as it got darker and people were beginning to walk back home.

“Yeah… I loved chatting with you, Sou-chan,” Nagisa agreed, with an apparently serene smile. “I don’t hear much from the old gang often, so it’s been really nice.”

He had confided that he barely ever talked to anyone from his high school days since graduation, because of their lives and distance, he said. And had accurately avoided mentioning Rei again, which Sousuke had vaguely registered.

“Maybe we could meet up again,” he then advanced. “Don’t know, for a movie or something.”

Sousuke thought about it a moment. Nagisa still seemed to be quite energetic and oozed positivity from every pore, which was… refreshing. For Sousuke anyway. And he was pleasant to talk to, since apparently his annoying traits - like how loud and clingy he used to be - had become less noticeable.

“Sure, why not?”

Only when he got back to his old place, Sousuke frowned, realizing that ‘meeting up for a movie’ sounded kind of weird, coming from a blind guy.

Sousuke remembered when Rin had (fondly) described Nagisa as ‘a handful’. And probably, things had not changed. The same day, before sleep, he realized he had spent hours with his phone turned off, but when he turned it back on he was welcomed by a wall of text notifications all coming from the same number:

~ “I asked Rin-chan for your number hope you don’t mind”

~ “By the way I’m Nagisa hehe”

~ “So I was thinking should I come to your place? Or maybe instead of a movie we could go grab pizza or something else don’t know.”

~ “Are you there Sou-chan?”

~ “I was also thinking it would be great to go to the pool and swim a little. I miss swimming a lot. Let me know!”

All of it in the span of five minutes an hour before, according to the timestamps. Apparently there was some habit of Nagisa’s that had not disappeared. Sousuke glared at his phone, before texting back.

~ “Sure. Let’s get something to eat. And I don’t really feel like swimming.”

At the mention of swimming, his shoulder seemed to gain life of its own and agree with a slight pang that was the last thing he should do while recovering.

He barely managed to get undressed and into more comfortable clothes, when his phone buzzed again.

~ “Okay! Let’s do it tomorrow? If you have nothing else to do anyway.”

Sousuke shrugged at himself, as he replied that it was alright. After debating for a minute he confirmed he had nothing to do with another message. After all, the alternative was sitting home and throwing himself a pity party, which he deemed to be quite pathetic. At least he thought Nagisa still knew how to make time together pleasant.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, after waking up, Sousuke had temporarily forgotten all about his encounter with Nagisa, so he went about his morning as usual, eating a healthy and balanced breakfast - as per his therapist’s very detailed diet plan -, doing exercises for his shoulder and cleaning the place up before his phone buzzed again.  
~ “ _So where are we meeting_?”   
He frowned at the text, lost for a moment, before remembering with a somewhat disappointed nod. _Ah, right. Hazuki. Pizza_. He yawned, thinking he did not really feel like it anymore, but again, the alternative was being home alone following the same routine. Might as well spend some time out.   
~ “ _What about in half an hour in front of the ITSC? Can you make it_?”   
He had thought of the old pool the Iwatobi High swim club used to spare Nagisa some walking or having to grab a train. And he did not offer to go pick him up because for some odd reason it sounded too much like a date to him. In the end, he knew both of them had had relationships with guys, and the last thing he wanted was to give Nagisa the impression that he desired _anything_ more than pizza with a friend. He was not going to stay for long, so why even give the other ideas? It was out of the question, and Nagisa seemed to not mind walking around town.  
~ “ _Sure! And then we’ll grab pizza, yeah?”  
_ Sousuke thought this guy was way too fast in replying to texts.   
~ “ _Alright. Hey, how do you type so fast_?”   
~ “ _I bought an iPhone. Siri writes what I say for me_.”  
Oh, right. Speech recognition and stuff. Sousuke had no idea how any of that even worked and he hadn’t even cared until then, he just knew it was a thing.  
~ “ _Right. Well, see you later_.

He arrived slightly late, trying his best not to look like he had gotten lost - as far as he knew, Nagisa was not aware of his orientation problems and to be honest Sousuke preferred it that way - but after all the blond younger man wasn’t there yet either. Sousuke, hands in his pocket, observed the building. It still had colorful outside walls and a big signboard with orcas, dolphins, butterflies and other marine animals, which read ‘ITSC RETURNS’ in big letters. It still looked fresh and people were constantly walking to and from it, the door having been blocked open to spare them the effort of opening it every time. He could even hear voices echoing from inside through the long hall that led to the actual pools, thus he assumed the place was doing quite good. Maybe the success of the Iwatobi swim club and its athletes (apparently both Haru and Rin were going to compete at the Summer Olympics, in the end, _good for them_ ) was still echoing through town, maybe their races had just encouraged more people to get into swimming. Maybe Sasabe had just done a very good job at attracting people to consider the activity as beneficial for various health issues. And maybe the current swim club at Iwatobi High was doing good, admitting it still existed. As he mused to himself about it, he heard some light steps and a scraping sound, thus he turned to greet the shorter young man he had come here to meet, who almost walked right past him. He was dressed moderately, with earbuds in his ears connected to a GPS, and a cane that he swung softly on the ground, an intent expression on his face and his eyes moving around a bit as if he was following an object he could not properly focus on.   
“Hazuki, I’m here,” Sousuke called, knowing he should say something to show he was there.  
“Ah, Sou-chan, you’re _already_ here!” Nagisa replied, opening up in a wide, shiny smile as he stopped and turned his head, his hands taking the earbuds out. “Didn’t _see_ you there,” he added with his eyebrow raising a little and a smirk. “Okay, that was lame. Like, really lame and overused. Should work on that.”  
“It was,” Sousuke agreed, but smiled a little regardless, letting it warm his voice up. He thought it was a good thing that Nagisa was making light of his own problem, in ways Sousuke could obviously still not do. “So, pizza?” He asked straight away, to avoid his usual discomfort with silence.   
He didn’t have to worry about it though. Much like the day before, whenever Nagisa was with someone it was apparent he would do all the talking if they would allow him, and Sousuke gladly did. Nagisa nodded, and Sousuke offered his forearm to guide him, with a joke from the younger about how it looked like they were going to dance.  

Between a slice and the other, Sousuke noticed something: First off, Nagisa seemed to be slower in every movement, chew carefully and then enthusiastically, he touched his food lightly with his lips, before biting into it. He seemed to be a lot more careful than how he used to appear. A few years back, he sounded like a completely reckless kid only begging for trouble.   
And then there was the fact that he was speaking about a wide array of topics, light and funny, telling jokes, talking about work and asking about Sousuke’s. He told Nagisa that sometimes he happened across Tachibana, too, and the two would chat about their situation. Lately Makoto had also started teaching at a pool where mostly kids went with their schools. Curiously, though, he had not mentioned Nagisa and his problem, even though after all they were still friends… Sousuke had assumed so, anyway.  
As minutes passed it became evident Nagisa did not seem to be intentioned to talk about his eyes, or about the accident. Sousuke thought maybe it was out of courtesy, since talking about heavy topics over lunch was not exactly the etiquette, but still… he did think it was odd. Anytime he talked to someone with a visible or less visible disability, the conversation would inevitably drift towards that direction at some point if not at the very beginning, thus he thought probably Nagisa hadn’t dealt with it as much as he wanted to show. Or maybe, he hypothesized, the guy had just been dealing with it so well that it wasn’t a disturb. Or something. Either way, he was not going to ask, although that thought mulled over in his head during the whole meal.   
Nagisa asked about Sousuke too, apologizing for having monopolized the conversation, but the older did not really mind. He told Nagisa about his own little jobs around Tokyo. Nothing permanent or secure, but he did not _seem_ to mind, and after all he would have to exclude heavy jobs or, unfortunately, anything that would require him to lift many weighs. He could not find anything even remotely looking like a coaching position, which would have been perfect given his amount of experience and his inclinations, thus for now he was content with carrying on like that. Nagisa questioned him about his shoulder and whether it bothered him with his work, but he simply shrugged, massaging it lightly as if getting reminded of it would make it ache.   
“I guess I just try to ignore it,” he muttered, remembering about those days when even after four hours his shoulder would start aching and he would reflexively start moving his arm in careful circles. “Anyway, I’m between jobs so I took a break from Tokyo to help a friend. You know the garage near Kozan Shrine? His assistant had to take a pregnancy leave, so I’m helping out there.”  
After the last piece was eaten, Nagisa rubbed his stomach with satisfaction, then he slumped in his seat, with a content expression as he played around with the fabric of the table cloth. He liked to rub his fingertips onto things to sense their consistence and texture a lot. It was a little pleasurable thing to do. “So what are we doing now?”  
_Should’ve expected it. He probably wants to hang out all day.  
_ “I don’t know, there’s not much to do around here anyway, right?” Sousuke replied, shrugging.   
“That’s true, but I want to spend more time with you!” Nagisa chirped, and smiled with his head still tilted forward and his eyes fixating on the table. “I don’t get much company, you know. I mean, it’s not like I’ve been abandoned or something, but it just doesn’t happen often that a friend pops back here…”   
Sousuke didn’t mean to feel that, really, but his chest clenched just slightly, feeling for the guy. In the end, maybe he had as many broken aspirations as himself.   
“Well, isn’t there a karaoke bar around here?” He asked, deciding he would take one for the proverbial team. He hated singing. He hated making a fool of himself, and he hated people’s judgment of his voice, but he was a grown up adult and decided he would humor Nagisa because he could. Maybe it would end up being fun, who would know?   
His idea seemed to be the right one, because Nagisa lit up and bounced on his seat nodding.   
“We’ll have to take a bus but yeah! Let’s do that! You’re singing too, right? It’s so much fun!” He twittered excitedly, losing the minimum of seriousness that had surrounded his attitude for the last moments. It was out of place with him anyway, Sousuke thought. _There_ was a glimpse of the guy he had met back then.  
He grunted, with a slight nod, however he was not really regretting that he voiced his idea. At least one of them was happy at the moment.   
On the bus to a bar deeper inland, Sousuke spared a few moments to observe Nagisa more. His head was constantly moving, probably to follow sounds coming from everywhere, and sometimes his lips would quirk in a little content smile, while he grasped on his cane. He also seemed to be a little startled at small bumps on the road, but then he would relax and chat with Sousuke as if he had not talked to someone in years. Hearing words constantly and having to pay attention to them was quite boring, not to mention Sousuke already heard a lot of blabber every day recently, but again he did not complain. He found out he _liked_ seeing this guy happy. It was like Nagisa radiated a particular kind of warmth, without even realizing so.

The part about picking songs and listening to Nagisa belt them out mostly in some improvised and exaggeratedly out of key verses or gibberish turned out to be very entertaining since he didn’t know most of them by heart and he seemed to be hell bent on choosing precisely songs he didn’t know, anyway. Sousuke even laughed when the younger man threw himself into a childish, unpleasant rendition of _Zankoku Na Tenshi No Teze_ , and asked Hideaki Anno for forgiveness at the end, to which Nagisa shrugged and replied that Anno himself probably would not care and would gladly blow raspberries along.   
However, when it came to Sousuke having to sing, his stomach protested each time, and he would spend several seconds scrolling through the list of available songs before finally picking one. And when he would finally sing one, no sound ever came from Nagisa. He would just sit there listening, which was unnerving, and his only comment about it came when they both got tired of it.  
“You have such a beautiful voice, Sou-chan!” He chirped with a grin once they got out. That was the first time Sousuke found himself being glad that Nagisa couldn’t see him, because that compliment made him flustered for some reason. And that was why he never spontaneously offered to sing.   
“Uh, thanks I guess,” he replied eventually, scratching his nape a bit in embarrassment. “It was fun,” he added, thinking more of Nagisa’s silly little swaying while screeching over cheesy pop songs than the moments when it was his turn.  
“We should do this again!”  
_Uh…_    
“We’ll see,” Sousuke replied vaguely, and cleared his throat. “Anyway… I should really go home,” he continued, quickly. That was a lie, he actually had nothing to do besides exercises for his shoulders and have dinner alone. Spending time with Nagisa was surely pleasant, but it seemed like his mind did not want anything to feel enjoyable while being in Iwatobi. Because he somehow wanted to be back to his sad lonely appartment in Tokyo, feeling miserable because of his shoulder. Or something.

Iwatobi was simply getting to be more and more uncomfortable as a reminder of his own cage, of all the things he used to do that now he was not doing anymore, either because he could not or because he had just given up on them. And there was his biggest reminder, Rin. Whom, he told himself for the hundredth time, he would never really reach again. In every way.  
After a moment he realized Nagisa was silent. He only spoke a few seconds later, right when Sousuke was worrying about having said something wrong, with a smile.   
“Okay! We’ll meet again though, right?” He asked, hopeful. “You aren’t leaving too soon, no?”  
That was the plan. However he also wondered why he should stay longer after his work was done here, and what for? Just to hang out with a guy who, in the end, he wasn’t even friends with? Or was he? Nagisa was a friend of Rin’s, so in a way that kind of made him Sousuke’s friend too, at least according to social norms. But was it enough of a reason to stay for a longer time than how it was needed, even though he had no business there, aside from family and nostalgia? No, it wasn’t.  
“I don’t know. My life is a bit… chaotic, right now,” he responded, scratching his head distractedly.   
“Oh… Right! But maternity leave lasts like two or three months, no? So we could go to the beach. I love it there, especially in this time of the year, it’s so calm…”  
Sousuke wondered when this guy had started liking the quiet. He remembered thinking that Nagisa seemed to be the type who would fit right into a chaotic place and probably be the happiest with a lot of noise around him… But then again, he probably got startled a lot more, and loud sounds bothered him now, maybe. Anyway, Sousuke grunted again, not really convinced about it.   
“We’ll see,” he finally replied, uncertain. One part of his thoughts was about how he had had fun today, after all, and how spending time with Nagisa was at the very least a good way to forget. The other part seemed to boil slowly in mild annoyance, and this was just the beginning of his stay.   
Nagisa appeared to be happy with that reply anyway. He smiled once more - there it was again, his high school kid’s wide, purest grin - and nodded, before Sousuke at least offered to walk Nagisa back home. But he would have none of it, he refused the help with a giggle, shaking his head. He said he could walk himself home.   
“Are you sure? It’s really no bother for me,” Sousuke insisted, touching his arm.  
“No, really, I can do it! I’ve walked alone around town a lot before, I’m _fine_ , I have my cane and GPS,” Nagisa retorted with a bit of frustration in his voice. But then smiled again, relaxing. Sousuke had never expected him to be the guy to act prideful and refuse help.

And Nagisa had indeed not been that kind of guy since recently. Looking back, he would think with some bitter irony about the time he had seen Rin after years of having lost track of him, when his friend had gone to Australia to become, hopefully, a swimming champion and had gradually stopped replying to his letters as well as his other friends’. He remembered perfectly that back when he had seen Rin again, in high school, he had been clearly happy to meet again.  
But when he was jumped at by Nagisa wagging a metaphorical tail with joy, Rin had almost ignored him, apparently with some disdain too, as if they had never been friends. Nagisa, though, knew that was not how he was. Nagisa knew bitterness at his current situation was not really what made him Rin. It was like an outer layer sticking on him, something that made him look tough and prone to irritation and isolation, but Nagisa knew that was not his friend’s real personality under all that. Back then he did not really understand it, but he worried because that was not his friend. Back then he wondered just _what_ had happened to him. He wanted _Rin-Rin_ back. Now he found himself realizing the same thing seemed to be happening to him, even though the two experiences were _profoundly_ different.  
While he made his way back to the same old house he lived in mostly just with one of his older sisters - who was doing a good job at juggling her own job and taking care of him - he thought for the umpteenth time about how much his state had affected him. In more visible, obvious ways, but also in subtle and thus powerful ones as well. He found himself being more afraid, more doubtful, hesitating a lot more whereas in the past he would actually not sense danger in the slightest. He was noticing every day little things he would not have even thought about before, like forgetting about having placed a box in the living room and tripping on it, or instinctively being a bit wary of walking around even with a cane to warn him of obstacles, which had been part of the first times dealing with walking without any reference point.   
One of the big changes had been that not being able to see had forced him to become systematic and organized almost to an obsessive level, because that helped walking around home without tripping on things. Every time he left he would make sure everything was exactly where it should be, differently from when he was younger and his room was a complete mess. Gradually it had affected his way of thinking and behaving as well. He walked the same routes, his days had become less and less exciting as unforeseen events became rarer and rarer. But he did not complain about the routine, since after all that felt safer.   
Of course, regrets piled up. Much like Sousuke, sometimes he would hear of people’s accomplishments, people getting their degrees, people building careers for themselves and climbing higher, people putting a family together, people raising their kids, and think that there he was, stuck. 

It was a good thing Nagisa was an optimistic person after all. He avoided thinking in long terms, and that was a trait he had always shown, so every day he followed his mood, either staying at home and taking care of himself, or going outside and walking with his cheerful guide dog, which he had bonded with very fast and was a good excuse to strike up conversation with people when he wanted some company, sometimes. The dog’s name was Olivia, and one of Nagisa’s silly stories was that he’d named him before he even knew what the animal’s sex was, and once he had figured that out it was too late and Olivia would only respond to that name. “So now we share the same destiny,” he had commented, with an ironic grin, alluding to both of them having a name generally given to girls.   
Looking at the bright side, if there was one, his current lifestyle meant having a lot of time to do what he liked, other than doing what he needed to. On the other hand… well, Nagisa had always been active and looking for enjoyment, adventures, fun. Where was the _fun_ in a static life, in a town where it was hard to have new experiences?   
If only he had _used his head_ before diving, he would be able to observe Sousuke and see his face. He smiled to himself, remembering how Sousuke looked like in high school: broad, big, tall - to him, anyway - and sort of always grumpy. Which was understandable, in hindsight. And also… well, he was absolutely gorgeous.   
Back then, Nagisa hadn’t _particularly_ cared because all of his friends had been graced with breath-taking bodies and really pleasant appearances, and after all he had a crush on a certain bespectacled boy… but now he remembered and got curious, which helped lifting his mood again since the walk had been quite somber. 

 ~ “ _Hey how do you look like now_?”   
Sousuke received the text as he crossed his doorstep and he frowned, slightly weirded out by the sudden question. What did he look like? ‘Normal’, his mind would reply.   
~ “ _What do you mean_?”  
Nagisa listened to the text a few times, trying to put into words his curiosity, but then he realized that it could sound like an odd question and mentioning his blindness was probably going to make Sousuke uncomfortable…  
~ “ _Nevermind_.”  
~ “ _Did you make it home safely_?”  
Sousuke decided not to pry further. After all, thinking about it he could understand more or less what the question was about. But he just had no accurate words for himself. He had always had words for describing Rin, if anything.  
~ “ _Yeah, thanks. I had fun! See you_!”   
Sousuke looked at the brief exchange, thinking there was something he was forgetting about, but then shrugged it off the moment he put his phone to charge. Probably nothing important.   
He went to bed soon, to prepare for another day at the garage hearing the constant chatter of its old owner and working on old cars almost too close to being wreckages as efficiently as he could possibly do. For some reason, that job had turned out to not be too bad, at least with the assignments Mr. Ono gave him.   
It really was not a bad way to spend his time and earn something, but it was still Iwatobi. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been re-reading the stuff I've written for this story _obsessively_ since I posted the first chapter. Like, I mean literally obsessively. And I bet by the end there'll be so many things that don't make sense even though the story is ridiculously simple but guess who can't write anything longer than 1k without fucking up haha *cries*  
>  anyway here it is. I guess stuff will start actually happening with chapter 3, but I think it was important to say some things before moving on with actual _things_. Anyway, I hope Nagisa is more realistic now as a blind character, I've been so paranoid over that you haVE NO IDEA *cries* *crosses fingers* god i'm so inept at long fics there's a reason why i generally don't write them what did i do T_____T *considers deleting the whole thing*


	3. Chapter 3

Over the course of that month, to describe it with honesty, Sousuke thought Nagisa was haunting him like a ghost or something like that. The thing was, Sousuke would always, somehow, end up bumping into Nagisa either with Olivia or without, one way or another out of sheer, pure accident, at the store, or on the sidewalk, or even at the shrine. The surprising thing was, he did _not_ escape it. He did not quietly slither away and pretend he didn’t see the other walking the dog around or sitting at the usual kiosk, but he would just start a conversation by talking to Nagisa first.   
However if at the beginning of each encounter his mind was partially refractory to it for some reason, as soon as conversation stroke he would find himself being amused by Nagisa’s quirks, by the way his words flowed along with his clear voice - which had slightly lowered since high school, and had become more mature.   
They didn’t speak about each other’s most pressing issues again, at first if anything, but Nagisa began opening up more eagerly out of being in a better mood than the usual and out of having opened up a lot more since high school - for various reasons, especially having started to see a therapist after the accident and having been left more or less without an excuse to not talk about his thoughts either way.   
Sousuke, on his part, started seeing beyond the adorable, happy façade. He silently noted how Nagisa’s optimism and his easy-going attitude sometimes were a perfect way to escape having to discuss things that made him scared, on top of everything the future and what to do with it. Which was not a topic they touched on much anyway since Sousuke had long realized that he had no secure, concrete ways of knowing what he would end up doing, thus he did not have much to say. He only had half-hypotheses, bits and pieces of ideas, and had explored barely any of them because he preferred, for the first time in years, to live each day as it was without expecting it to change his life. Which, Nagisa told him, was a wise approach to his problem and to how he should face it. But generally, he wished to find a stable job that would grant him money for the bills and groceries every month. At least that. His ambitions had ridimensioned themselves in the last few years.  
  
They did not hang around a lot of places either, especially as days went by, because Sousuke would unintentionally become concerned about which roads were safe, which had a lot of steps and stairs, which were easier to reach through public transportation, and there weren’t many options left. Even though Nagisa did have Olivia, who actually helped minimizing accidents and kept him company, eventually they would always end up stumbling on each other at the same few places, anyway, which prompted jokes about how Nagisa’s cane would always end up tipping Sousuke’s foot, as if it had a life of its own and wanted to make them meet. For some reason.  
One of the places they would find each other often at was, clearly, the kiosk by the beach. The days were warming up, so sitting under a soft shade and sipping something fresh was as pleasant as anything could get in a relatively small town. And there was always Nagisa’s chatter about the most mundane things along with memories, which at times would stop in contemplation. Those were the moments when Sousuke would wonder what really had changed behind the display of childishness he remembered, and what kind of sadness Nagisa was avoiding to show. He did not seem the mysterious type. He did not sound like someone who would keep his thoughts for himself, or make himself sad. Then again, undoubtedly the trauma he had received was serious to say the least, the damage had to have affected Nagisa’s psyche as well, on some level, just like having a fucked up shoulder had affected Sousuke’s own. It was actually stunning how well Nagisa's brain worked. Anyway, at least there was Olivia, who had been already trained and made responsive to people’s interactions way before even having a name, and the animal had clearly taken a liking to Nagisa given how much he bounced around him whenever he was just slightly happier than usual. At least, Olivia had made sure that his owner would never be alone even when Nanako, his sister, needed to be out for her own reasons. 

Sousuke thought he would bring up one of the things he had noticed about their conversations, or better yet how, in the midst of all of Nagisa’s words, too often a certain name was missing.  
“Say, what about Ryuugazaki?” He finally mentioned one time, after taking a particularly long sip of soda, and he noticed how Nagisa’s expression froze a little, his lips tightening at the mention of that name. That was clearly one of the topics Nagisa was not willing to talk about easily. But it also seemed that in a way he wanted to, after all. Olivia raised his head, as if he could perfectly understand the conversation and sense the tension.  
“What about him?” Nagisa asked then, suckling from his straw.   
“I remember you could not shut up a second about ‘Rei-chan’ here and ‘Rei-chan’ there, other than Nanase. So, well, I just thought it’s weird that you aren’t bringing him up every other minute now,” Sousuke replied with a casual tone. There was something that suggested caution to him.   
“Yeah,” Nagisa eventually agreed, looking relaxed. “Well, about Rei-chan… I don’t know how he’s doing or what he’s doing, really,” he said in a tone that sounded forcefully distant, not at all like his usual, while petting Olivia’s head in soft touches, maybe to comfort himself or just to feel the smoothness of the dog’s fur. Sousuke remembered, in their few conversations, but also from observing all of Rin’s friends whenever they were together, Nagisa would always praise Ryuugazaki and Nanase the most, and yet only the latter had been named in their recent conversations. Of course, it was easier. Sousuke would talk about Rin, and since the latter and Haru were always together, at least in races, it was obvious that they would feature in conversations, and Nagisa, stuck in Iwatobi, was as proud of them as anyone could get. Especially when something new would happen, like one of them winning a particularly important race (of course, Sousuke would get a billion texts from Rin after each event, which was how he knew every detail of it).

Sousuke threw a look at the owner of the little kiosk, who was in his opinion just pretending he wasn’t hearing it all. He imagined there just weren’t many interesting conversations around there.  
“Do you want us to walk a little?” Sousuke offered, and Nagisa took the cue to at least try and switch the topic, which failed at a minute later when the older asked again, with their step being a bit faster than the usual since Olivia seemed to be in a good mood and wanting to pull ahead for some reason.   
Nagisa wondered why Sousuke even _cared_ , anyway. He had just raced Rei once or twice, maybe, and Nagisa didn’t think that Sousuke would be the guy to pry into personal matters, not with people who weren’t Rin anyway. After all, though, they had talked a lot and, in a way, they could relate to one another. 

“The last time I saw him, it was a bit after the time when it… well, when it happened, you know,” Nagisa continued, pointing at his eyes, and took a deep sigh. “We broke up. As far as I know, he’s studying in Tokyo,” he added shortly, and took another sip as he stared insistently ahead of himself, appearing to be lost in thought. But his lips were tight now, and it was evident that the topic hurt him. That might have been a moment when Sousuke could have let it go and talked about something else, but after letting the surprise go after hearing that Ryuugazaki and Hazuki had been indeed together, came the surprise of knowing they weren’t anymore.  
_We broke up_. He remembered the two were as tight as it could get, would always look at one another like they were each other’s entire world, and they really seemed like two people who were going to share a life together, either as friends or something else.  
“So you two _were_ together,” Sousuke repeated, confirming his first impressions. “Why did you br—?”  
“Can we talk about something else?” Nagisa asked abruptly, with a perfectly rehearsed polite smile which only made Sousuke frown more.  
“Sorry. It’s just so weird, I remember you two were basically inseparable,” the other offered as an excuse. It was really weird, and he wondered whether Ryuugazaki was really the kind of person to abandon a blind guy. “You broke up after you got blind?”

Nagisa sensed where that was going. He had heard the conclusion to that train of thought once too many times, and Rei did not deserve to be thought of as that kind of person. Luckily Makoto still was a good friend of Rei’s, Haruka was neutral - with a little bit of a bias toward Nagisa, to be fair -, and Rin was critical of both of them. He sighed, lowering his defenses once again at that point. He did not want Sousuke to get the wrong impression of the person who still happened to be his best friend.   
“We stayed together for a while after I got out of the hospital, and I mean, even during my stay he was by my side and he was… perfect. Really. He put up all the way through hospitalization, he supported me when the blunt of it got too heavy, he was… well, he was good to me, alright? But then… yeah, I guess it’s true that we started fighting because of the tiniest things and it stressed us out because there was just something he wouldn’t say to me,” he explained, and then took a long breath. “Until he finally said he… he resented me.”   
Nagisa’s expression was the pure, melancholic image of regret.   
“Why?” Sousuke asked after a few seconds, mulling that thought in his head. “I mean, you saved a kid, why did he blame _you_?”  
“Well, he'd told me hundreds of times that if something happened to someone else in the Ocean I should call for help and avoid just jumping in, which is exactly what I did. He didn’t really say ‘I told you so’, but that’s the gist of it. And like, at first he acted like he didn’t want to say it, and I think he really didn’t want to think in those terms, but I guess… he felt like he couldn’t tell me how he felt because it would make me upset or make me feel bad, you know?” Nagisa explained, while holding onto Sousuke’s forearm with a hand and onto the leash with the other, and then grimaced. “I think he resented me all the time... if it makes sense. And then of course, he had college to attend, he had a lot of things to do and I could not fit into that schedule as hard as we tried, and… it just didn’t work out,” he concluded as fast as possible, insistently turning his eyes away from Sousuke: he was sure his vulnerable side was showing on his features. And he actually questioned himself: did really Rei hate him? Their communications had gotten so infrequent. Every time they talked it was so evident that a huge barrier had lifted between them, he was afraid of knocking on it and risking to open a painful wound.

“I see,” Sousuke replied, low. “I’m sorry. If it’s of any comfort, I was with Rin too, but that didn’t work out either,” he mentioned, thinking that maybe Nagisa wouldn’t be mad at him for asking, but the other turned to him with shock all over his face and stopping on their tracks, stopping Olivia’s walk and his tedious scratching on the ground with his cane. Sousuke wondered whether Nagisa had hoped they would talk about something else and was now grabbing the opportunity with both hands.   
Speaking of Rin, and thinking about their time together, he remembered how  perfect and effortless it had seemed to be. Or how it had began as simple, anyway. He remembered everything had been quite easy as dating goes. And of course, it had been easy to get away with sex at the Academy, since they had shared a room and they always remembered to lock the door. And in case someone would hear them moan - even though they really tried not to -, they would have the excuse of having gotten hurt during training or something like that. After all, it was not much of a reach. He remembered that after all their relationship had gotten ‘to the next level’, it had not changed much from before, since they had been really close even as kids, bickering and competing over small or big things, having each other’s back.   
But lately he had managed not making himself bitter over the way it had ended - Rin’s tears, him saying that he had met someone else, that he could finally start a family, and that he had made his choice. Even at that, Sousuke could not hate him despite the crushing pain shattering his chest in a second, and then the intense ache that had come after it. After all, that was quite common, in stories between men, or women, as everybody was expected to marry once they would reach the adult stage after being allowed to explore their sexuality in their teenage years. Except for them it had not been a game, or an experiment. However, they had both patched up whatever they could pick back up of their feelings for one another, balancing it with secrets and goodwill. Rin sounded happy now, and that was enough for Sousuke.   
“What? So you were together at some point!” Nagisa almost screeched, and then pouted. “I knew it! Mako-chan owes me!”.   
“We were together, but then, you know… he got married,” the other recounted, with a shrug and little bit of resignation. “Wait, you guys placed bets on mine and Rin's relationship?” He then added with a frown, but the other seemed to ignore it completely.  
“I know about that!” Nagisa trilled. “I couldn’t make it to the wedding because I got called to the hospital, but I know her. She’s cool,” he offered, and squeezed Sousuke’s forearm a little, in a sign of support. But in the end, Sousuke could not resent Rin. He sounded really happy to be a husband, after all.   
“Getting married didn’t stop him from being a pain in the ass anyway,” he grumbled. “He still checks in on me like he was my _mother_ or something, it’s annoying.”  
“Huh?” Nagisa was a bit confused, but mostly curious, and honestly amused too. He totally did see Rin as someone who would keep his friends a little under control, especially as a professional with a rigid discipline.   
“He texts me to tell me to keep up with my therapy regime. He checks in on what I goddamn eat. Every time I object to it he brings up the fact that I fucked up my shoulder because he was trusting me to do the therapy right,” Sousuke began complaining, even gesticulating a little. “I love him, but fuck that attitude.”  
Nagisa finally smiled, his heart lifting a little in his chest.   
“I see, he nags Sou-chan a lot,” he commented in an ironic tone.   
“You wouldn’t imagine just how much,” Sousuke agreed, relieved that the other was in a better mood now.   
“A bit like Rei-chan,” Nagisa surprisingly continued. “When I was getting used to this, he just wouldn’t stop telling me, like, to pay attention where I walked, and it was so frustrating! I was like, ‘I know, Rei-chan, stop telling me’ but he just wouldn’t get it!” He whined, but did so in a lighter tone, an amused one even. A fond voice. Sousuke eyed him with surprise, guessing that maybe Nagisa didn’t _really_ want to avoid the topic, he just preferred to talk about it on his own terms. Pretty much like, after all, it was easy to guess he would talk about these things with a psychologist more easily since he would know about it and be able to get ready, and to prepare something to say. Actually, after that moment Nagisa began talking about Rei a lot more.   
So much that it started bothering Sousuke a little. 

“So, Ryuugazaki should be done with university and stuff at this point, isn’t it?” Sousuke advanced, the evening of a couple of days later after they had grabbed ice-cream and Sousuke had complained about it being too soon for that, but after all Nagisa had insisted so much and, worst of all, had stared at him with a kicked-and-abandoned-puppy look. The kiosk had begun feeling a bit like ‘their’ place, which was very appropriate since one of the things that apparently had not changed even slightly about Nagisa was his appetite for anything sweet and covered in sugar.   
They were now taking a walk on a street parallel to the beach, with the sea sounding as a relaxing, distant background. Olivia was strolling along only stopping on his tracks and interrupting them to inspect a light pole, or marking the territory.  
“He should be. I really haven’t heard from him in a while,” Nagisa replied after contemplating it for a few seconds. “Last time I heard from him, he was preparing his thesis… and he said his plan was to stay in University to be a researcher,” he added with a smirk. A proud, affectionate kind of smile too.   
“So he’s going to keep studying,” Sousuke hummed, inevitably comparing himself to Ryuugazaki. At least he was going somewhere. “Do you talk to him often?”  
“Well, he’s my ex,” Nagisa explained as if there was a need to repeat that concept. “We don’t talk nearly as much as we used to, but I cannot complain because, I mean, I ruined it, so…” he said with a small shrug and the intention of dragging that response into silence.  
“Well, come on, you didn’t ruin anything,” the other male objected instead, with a frown. “You just took a rash decision, but you didn’t ask to be blind.”   
“I know that, but I put myself in that situation anyway,” Nagisa retorted, immediately tensing up a little. “And I’m not going to blame him for not having enough time for me among everything else. This is the real world, you can’t just demand someone to drop everything to take care of you.”  
“Yeah, I get it, but that doesn’t mean it’s your fault that you broke up,” Sousuke stated firmly. Nagisa let go of his arm. He didn’t like this conversation anymore.  
“Why do you care, anyway?” He asked abruptly, and it felt like he had been wondering that for a while. “Nobody ever cares beyond ‘I’m sorry’ so why do you?” He finally grumbled, getting frustrated quickly. It was clear he had been sitting on that thought for a while.   
Sousuke took a long breath.   
“Fuck, you sound just like Rin,” he muttered, and his jaws clenched for a moment. Yeah, why did he care? He didn’t know that. Nagisa was a fun guy. And he seemed to be quite stronger than he looked, so he could take care of himself - within reason, obviously. Then why was Sousuke worrying?   
“I’m not shutting you out, I’m just wondering why you got in to begin with,” Nagisa explained, clearly relieved that he could voice some thoughts he had been having. “Like, you and I have never been friends, you only ever cared for Rin-chan, why are you worrying about me?”   
He said that despite the fact that he had enjoyed Sousuke’s company a lot, that in the end he had been the one to more or less implicitly asked him to stay.  
Sousuke opened his mouth to retort that he could care about two or more people at the same time, thank you very much, but then he realized Nagisa had not really responded to his initial statement, and shook his head.  
“Anyway, again, you didn’t ruin anything,” he insisted, going back to square one, which was when Nagisa turned his head and clenched his jaws in silence. He had obviously hoped talking about the two of them would make Sousuke forget about Rei.  
_Huh, so there is a way to shut this guy up_ , Sousuke thought.  
“Seriously, it sounds like you’re blaming yourself for trying to rescue a kid,” he pressed again, and when Nagisa stopped their walk he halted too. “Or was it Ryuugazaki blaming you?”   
“He never blamed me!” Nagisa finally snapped raising his voice and shaking his head in a little storm of fluffy blond curls.  
“Listen, I’m not saying he’s a bad guy or that he should’ve done more or something, but it really sounds like he… wished you hadn’t saved a kid,” the other kept on going, and it seemed to him like he was getting somewhere today, like a detective being close to cornering the culprit.   
“Well, you heard it wrong,” Nagisa concluded with a defying, fierce look. Because in the end, Rei had been good and caring, he had helped Nagisa out without making it weigh on him… at least for the first months. Which was hard. And of course he would not be angry at Nagisa for doing something good, he was kind and selfless beyond people’s expectations. He knew Rei.  
He also knew that some tend to blame people’s supports whenever they make the tiniest mistake, or whenever they are overwhelmed and have to leave. And he did not have the heart to hear his best friend being blamed or made to be looked at in a negative light.   
“And by the way, that’s not even the issue. The issue is, I’m… freaking _blind_ , living on my sister’s shoulders and being of literally no use to anybody,” he spat out. He then turned and began walking away, despite Olivia tugging worriedly to correct his direction. He would have marched straight into a light pole if Sousuke hadn’t grabbed his arm again. When he turned around, prompted by the other, Nagisa was swallowing thickly with his eyes looking wetter, and his cheeks were just slightly tinged with a flush. Sousuke’s eyes went wide, with a stinging sense of having pushed it a little too much that pressed on his heart.   
“I’m sorry.” Sousuke was ready to tell him again that he was avoiding the discussion, but when he saw the look on the younger’s face he took a step back, once he realized that he had pried into something that at the end of the day was none of his business. Was it?  
Sousuke told himself that feeling like crap for having caused it was a bit pathetic and, most of all, very useless. He thought maybe he had gotten too involved with this guy. Just what he had told himself not to do. _Good job, Sousuke_.  
“It’s fine. Thanks for listening to me,” Nagisa blurted a bit cold, however then he sighed trying not to look as upset as he was. “Could you walk me home?” He then asked in a thin little voice that sounded so much like he had de-aged of at least five years. “I can walk myself home with Olivia, but I’d feel safer. You know, I haven’t walked into traffic going around with you _yet_ , so…” he added with a tiny smile and attempting to lighten the mood.  
Sousuke pursed his lips, not satisfied with how their walk had ended up, but in the end who was he? 

_Nobody_.

“Sure,” he replied, offering his arm again, and they walked all the way back silently, safe a few warning monosyllables from Sousuke and Nagisa’s similarly short replies. If something was clear to Nagisa right now, though, it was that Sousuke for some reason definitely _did_ care, and he had been wrong to assume otherwise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, let me tell you two things: I finally figured out where I want this story to go, so I'm writing it with a bit more confidence. Second, I'm planning to post it before January 11th (because it's supposed to participate in a challenge that ends around that date) but anyway it's probably going to be 7 chapters max, since I'm really bad at keeping things long. So far I wrote almost 20k though, so I'm satisfied with it despite all the time skips ^^ which means I'm probably going to post chapter 4 for Christmas (because it's a bit happier XD) and then chapter 5 before new year's eve? That is, if I keep being this motivated to write anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

It was indeed ridiculous how little it had taken for Nagisa to wiggle his way into Sousuke’s thoughts and worries. He realized so while thinking about that conversation the next morning. Sure, they had known each other before, but he had always been quite reserved. Then why had he been so bothered by Nagisa’s words blaming himself? Maybe it was a sense of justice, or maybe it was simple empathy. He thought maybe they would meet each other again that day and talk about it, so that maybe he would get to apologize, when his phone rang and his physiotherapist’s number blinked on the screen. He sighed, ready for another conversation where he would have to remind the guy about his temporary job fixing old cars and motorcycles.  
His therapist was not the kind of guy to urge people to resume their treatment with much insistence, but he had said that stalling would only shorten Sousuke’s time to at least be able to heal. He had realized his dream was basically gone, since, if anything, staying out of Tokyo had made him realize that there was no chance left to get serious with competitive swimming, and all of his training was already in the past. He had fought so hard and had brushed off any thought of being too old for it with objections that his talent would make up for the time he’d wasted, but after all wasn’t it the truth?   
But he still wanted to at least forget about the shoulder pains that occasionally would make him tense and grit his teeth. The shoulder had irremediably weakened, and it needed constant exercise, his muscles needed to be kept strong so that the situation would not get out of hands. Domestic exercises could only help up to a certain point, after all.   
He had concerned himself a lot about Nagisa lately. Maybe he needed to take care of himself too…  
But even in that moment, as he picked the call up, he could not help ending up with a thought for the other, wondering how he was doing.

Nagisa had entered his own home with a long sigh, the evening before, and had tried to keep his mind clear of any thought concerning the discussion he had just had. He tried had not to be upset, and to regain his usual mood. But even as he made sure his cane was by the door and sat down on his sofa, with Olivia immediately hopping on his lap for some cuddles, he realized Sousuke had planted a seed in him that he had tried to ignore all this time. Did Rei blame him? Did he still hate him? He could not be sure, as he had sort of assumed so since everything had silently gone sour between them.   
Then, his fingers still immersed in his dog’s soft fur while petting slowly on it, he decided to pick up the phone comfortably sitting on the small table in the middle of the room and compose his ex’s number.  
Rei only picked up after quite a bit, with a colorless tone in his voice.  
“Yes?”  
The last time they had talked was a couple of months prior, and back then the conversation had been flavorless, words had tumbled out of Nagisa’s mouth without collecting any feeling to deliver. It had been particularly painful because of that: there seemed to be nothing to say, nothing valuable to keep with each other. So much of their time together seemed to have just disappeared, it had seemed to be meaningless. So much of their days together as best friends looked like it had disappeared like they had never happened. But Nagisa remembered the love, the dedication Rei had given him before, during and after Nagisa’s time in hospital. Could that have gone too? Maybe it was just Rei defending himself. And again, Nagisa felt a stab in his chest. He never meant for any of that to happen.  
“Hi, Rei-chan… how are you?” He finally spoke, softly, holding onto the receiver.   
Rei took a couple of seconds to reply - Nagisa assumed it was out of surprise for the quiet tone he had used - but he replied with a lighter, more courteous tone. “I am doing well, thank you… I’m assuming you are still in Iwatobi.”  
“Yeah, everything is still pretty much the same,” Nagisa said, closing his eyes as he leaned his head back against the sofa, to relax and think of a way to put it that would not upset the voice on the other end. After all, there was still love and care there.   
They chatted a little, their voices slightly tense - more on Nagisa’s end - and the topics kept light and harmless.  
“Do you know Sou-chan came back here?” Nagisa decided to ask, eventually deciding to finally give this conversation its purpose.   
“No, what is he doing there?” Rei asked, of course in a sharper, focused tone now. He was probably studying a few seconds before, which could have been the reason for his impersonal response at first.   
“He’s temporarily working at a friend’s garage since he doesn’t have a stable job in Tokyo anyway. So we ended up hanging out a lot lately,” Nagisa told him, and paused to listen to Olivia who was whining, most likely for food, so he stood up, stumbling with the dog guiding him to the shelf where he kept all of his things, food and toys.   
“Okay,” Rei replied in the meanwhile, with a tone that seemed to be a bit confused, as if he was wondering where this was going and what Sousuke had to do with anything.  
“Well… he basically, um, forced me to talk about, you know… us. Me and you,” Nagisa added after filling up his dog’s bowl. At that, he heard a faint but still noticeable sigh, which meant Rei’s attention had been poked.  
“And…?”  
“He kept asking why we broke up, and I got mad, but then I realized, well… You know, I remembered what you told me, but now I don’t know whether you still resent me. I wondered if you hate me, too,” he finally confessed, and then bit down on his lip. It looked like he had jumped back in time, when he was insecure about Rei liking him back, when he was still terrified of his own feelings.   
A bit of silence followed, then he heard a ruffling sound as the other leaned back against his seat and settled his papers and books, but then finally Rei spoke again.   
“Nagisa-kun, I don’t hate you. Gosh, I’ve _never_ hated you. I was _angry_ at you. I guess I shouldn’t have been, but I was scared and I kept obsessing over the image of you in the water, bleeding… _I could have lost you_. And I guess I was not strong enough for that after all. I made a mistake in leaving you,” he mused regretfully. “It didn’t end in the best of ways, I guess, but it is all right now… more or less.”  
Nagisa’s breath got trapped in his lungs. At that moment, he felt like a million rocks had dropped on him, without leaving him any space to breathe.  
“N-no… no, I mean, I understand. It’s been hard on both of us. It’s just all this time I assumed you hated me…”   
Rei hummed, pensively.  
“I definitely _was_  close to hating you at some point, which was part of why I wanted to break up. However, it’s been a while now and I realized all of that anger was misplaced. In the end a child was risking to die and simply calling for help might have been technically insufficient to rescue him,” he considered. “And… I suppose I was projecting on you, somehow. I think a lot of my feelings back then had been sparked by sub-consciously being reminded of that time when I almost drowned too. I guess I remembered feeling guilty about it, and then I assumed you would feel guilty as well, but you never seemed to be regretting diving in to help a boy. I mean, it's not like you should be.”   
Nagisa remembered that. He remembered the storm at night, he remembered that him and Makoto standing alone and worried sick on the beach and then there they were, Haruka and Rei, lost in the middle of the sea as they tried to make it to land.   
“But I’m sorry you thought I hated you. You’re still my best friend after all… I could _never_ hate you,” Rei added, and so much sweetness seeped through his tone and his words, Nagisa’s heart seemed to calm down. He was touched. The weigh on his chest started to lift, and his expression cleared, his lungs filling up again, and his lips dropped open in relaxation. “I actually admire you for what you did.”  
“There’s no way we could get back together…” Nagisa hummed, not sure whether he meant to ask instead. A brief silence followed.  
“I… don’t know how to tell you but I suppose I should go for the straightforward route: I have found somebody, Nagisa-kun…” the other voice replied, all of a sudden a bit defensive. “And, uh… I don’t… I’m…”  
Hearing him stutter made a smile tug at Nagisa’s lips with a little of his mischievous self mixing with his feelings, despite everything.  
“No, it’s fine, really!” He replied, quick. “I tried. I had to,” he joked. “But I understand, of course I understand… it’s okay! They’re lucky.”   
He found out, surprisingly, that he was indeed not very upset. His heart had clenched at the idea but it was calming its beat, which he did not expect. He had thought his feelings resonated with Rei’s name and that he was still too wrapped around him, that he still loved him and somehow that was why they had not had a serious conversation for years, but evidently the only thing holding him back from wearing his heart on his sleeve with Rei had been fear of hatred. Which, all things considered, made sense to him.  
“I can’t believe we haven’t talked like this all this time… If I’d talked to you before I would have spared myself so much… _so much_ ,” He self-reproached, with a long sigh.   
“That is because I needed to work through my own feelings as well. And you are not exactly one to face what bothers you, am I still right?” Rei teased him, his quiet, warm voice reaching Nagisa’s slow smile, which mirrored back the one in Shibuya. Rei was probably right, Nagisa thought with his eyes softening in nostalgia. In a certain way, he found it funny how back in high school, before everything had happened, the threat of being forced to quit the swim club where all his friends were appeared to be the end of the world, for him. The person he was back then seemed to be quite a different one, although he undoubtably retained some of his traits. It was hard to get rid of defensive walls.  
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he hummed with amusement ringing deep in his light-hearted voice. “I mean, I do open up a lot more now, though,” he protested, putting on a pout. The quiet laughter that came from the other end made him smile wider, as if magically the tension from just a minute ago had disappeared. He would have loved to know just when Rei had stopped being angry at him, with accuracy. He dreaded to know, however, how much time he had wasted thinking that was still a problem at all. By the way, he considered that some things seem to be engraved in stone. Sometimes, especially when they have a negative flavor, they appear to have an everlasting impact. With a new-found lightness, he realized just how they had seemed to be definitive when really, all they needed was time for both of them to digest their story together. And it had less to do with them as two people, and more to do with each of them individually, with their personal growth. And then he realized just how childish he had been.   
What had started as a tense moment - Nagisa had expected to receive the worst stab to his heart, which he thought he deserved too - turned almost without any of the two realizing it into a pleasant rediscover. They had talked for a while, until Nagisa started yawning, and Rei softly wished him goodnight. Before falling asleep, Nagisa noted to himself that he should tell Makoto and Haruka that everything was, unexpectedly, alright. A bit of ache came too, when he realized he missed their voices. Makoto’s warm hands, Haruka’s silences that had never made him any harder to read.

He woke up with the best mood in weeks that day, maybe months. He rolled in bed pleasantly too, which called Olivia’s attention and made him jump on the mattress with a little happy whining, as he had fallen asleep on his little bed by the door. Nagisa giggled lethargic, but hugged him, and conceded himself a few minutes to cuddle with his loyal companion and enjoy the totalizing, addictive feeling of smooth fur under his fingertips and around them. For the purpose of keeping the dog fluffy and soft, he had even made a point of washing him at least once a month, to brush his fur often, and to feed him quite a lot of fish like tuna and mackerel, which never failed to make him think of Haruka and how much he would approve. Taking care of Olivia made both of them happy, too. At least Nagisa didn’t feel like too much of a burden, even though at times it was hard to not look around, look at his life, and compare it once again to how it used to be.   
To take his own mind off those thoughts, though, he thought about that idea he had noted for himself the day before, and dialed Haruka’s number while sitting cross-legged on the bed, his big blanket wrapped around him and Olivia like they were a child and a pup.  
“Nagisa,” his friend replied, in his usual, apparently blank tone.   
“Hey, Haru-chan! How are you?” Nagisa began cheerfully. “When are you coming back home? And you should really bring me a cake from wherever you are when you come back!”   
Haruka’s little smile was as evident as it could get through his voice - and it warmed up at Nagisa’s usual display of energy and positivity. He seemed to be happy anyway, that was what he would should all the time whenever the two of them talked.  
“I don’t know, but I’ll try to come back soon,” He replied, with a background noise of cars and some music fading near him. “I’ll try to bring you cake.”   
“Are you already on the road?” Nagisa asked, surprised, and eyed the clock… it was well past nine in the morning.  
“I’m going to meet a sponsor,” the older friend replied, evidently balancing his phone between his shoulder and cheek.  
“With Rin-chan?” Nagisa pressed on, rubbing his eyes. He assumed so since Rin and Haruka would often do things in tandem, after all.  
“No. He’s got another sponsor. Are you alright?” Haruka seemed to be in a hurry, so Nagisa hummed for a second before bouncing on the bed and making Olivia groan, so he pet him reassuringly.  
“Yeah! I called you because… I called Rei-chan!” Nagisa started again, in an excited tone as he twirled his finger around a strand of the dog’s smooth fur. At that response, Haruka’s voice tensed noticeably.  
“Ah. And?”   
It sounded like he was already thinking about when he would be able to ring Rei to scold him for whatever imaginary thing he had said.  
“It’s alright, Haru-chan! We clarified things!” Nagisa wasted no time in announcing happily, with a rushed chirp as he swayed sat on the bed like the teenager he used to be. “He never hated me, so we’re okay now!”  
A light silence followed that on the phone, replaced by urban noises, fragments of more music and a vague murmur of so many voices around Haruka to be unintelligible. But then he finally replied, and from the way his voice came soft and light, he sounded as happy as Nagisa was.   
“That’s good. I’m glad you finally solved it.”   
Nagisa didn’t doubt Haruka was genuinely happy for him.   
“So… yes, that’s what I wanted to tell you. Sorry I disturbed!” Nagisa apologized, now worried that he was bothering his friend.  
But Haruka’s voice came calm like the Ocean in summer.   
“It’s no bother, Nagisa. I’m really glad you’re okay,” he hummed, with his usual kind tone. “Anyway, I have to go. I’ll see you, okay?” He started again, in a bit of a hurry now.   
“You’re coming to Iwatobi? Yay!” Nagisa cheered as he threw a fist in the air and Olivia glanced up at him, not even startled, before resuming his nap. Apparently the dog was quite used to these outbursts from his owner.   
“Sure, I still have to organize it but I’ll visit soon,” Haruka promised, vaguely.  
Nagisa didn’t even press on that, since the mere knowledge of being about to be visited by his friend was making him rock happily on the mattress with Olivia whining softly. “Right,” he sighed, now relaxing and petting on the dog's head, now leaned on his lap. Olivia was swooshing his tail around, content, spreading around a pleasant smell of clean fur. “I’ll be waiting for you, then.”  
He hugged the animal once he had hung up, holding this happiness and relief tight in his hands.

In the afternoon he even decided he was going to spoil himself, Olivia and Nanako with lunch out, which his sister insisted was a whim, but he ignored her by storming out of his house… and then realized he had forgotten something.   
Nanako tapped him on the head with his cane, with a sigh, but also eyed him amused.   
“You’re in a good mood, huh, Nagisa-chi?” She asked, and ruffled his hair, distractedly noticing how the sun brightened their skin and draped them with a mild warmth. The hot season really was approaching, in small and gradual steps. “The sky is too.”  
“I am feeling better than usual, actually!” Nagisa replied smiling big, his hands tightening around his cane with an excitement he could not even fully explain by just telling her that one of his big dilemmas had dissolved much more easily than how he would have expected. That his friends’ love had never vanished.  
“Well, then we really should celebrate,” she agreed making sure that her voice sounded as affectionate and grateful as she was.   
She had watched over Nagisa’s descent from being a generally happy and cheerful teenager to a wounded young man, had seen him tumble down in a pit of stress and abandonment, not to mention she had silently watched over him as bitterness had begun insinuating inside of her little brother’s chest, just gathering there, despite his infinite amount of positivity that really helped with the worst of it all. Despite the fact that the two had been constantly fighting and being a nuisance to each other throughout their lives, when Nagisa had almost died his family had all gone back home and to the hospital from the four corners of the world they had been to, either for work or leisure. His parents especially had juggled work and hospital time in almost impossible times and routines, so that Rei would not be alone in keeping Nagisa some company. Better than anyone else they knew the things that would really damage their son the most were loneliness and abandonment. Now, his parents would still come home sometimes, but being both busy business people they could not be there much, hence why Nanako, bravely, had taken it on herself to stay home as much as possible and be a support, no matter how much Nagisa said he would be able to live on his own without any help. The truth was, help was appreciated. He would never accept it from someone he thought would not stay there to give it to him, but he trusted his family to not give him a hand and then vanish. Which was what he had learnt to expect from almost anyone else. 

“Order whatever you want, Onee-san. It’s all on me today, and you deserve to burst with lots of sugar!” He squealed at her after they stumbled upon a pâtisserie that had grabbed Nagisa’s attention by letting delicious, sinful scents escape on the outside through the open door. The man could just not help being attracted but the scent of chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, and various types of sweet mixtures. And besides, the moment Olivia had started sniffing the air interested, they all knew they were going to buy pastries, even though the dog really could not eat sweets.  
“You know, I don’t really feel like—“ She tried to protest in a low, shy voice, but he shook his head.  
“Give me your hand,” he said, placing his own open on the table. She blinked and did so, and the moment Nagisa sensed her skin on his, he grabbed it with both his own. “I just want to thank you. For putting up with me and taking care of me, so just accept it, please?” He explained, with a little smile.   
She looked at him and wondered, where did this come from? Why was Nagisa feeling so much better now, after years?  
“You don’t need to thank me, Nagisa-chi. You’re my little brother, I—“  
“But you’re working a lot more than you should because of me.”  
“It’s… it’s not a problem, Nagisa, really. You don’t owe me anything,” she insisted, now placing her hand on top of their own which now formed a little . And then began gently caressing the back of his hand on top, with a slightly moved smile. “But hey, if you insist I’ll have a really big, huh,” she added, eyeing the menu. “… Éclair with chocolate and a buttload of whipped cream and some latte.” She smirked, but Nagisa’s expression didn’t change. He actually kept silent, waiting. “Huh, you expect me to eat more? No, Nagisa-chi, I can’t do more than that!” She then protested, honestly a bit disappointed that he was not whining about money so that she could tease him. As if Nagisa would mind spending on his family and friends, she argued with herself and found out she agreed.  
“Aw. Well, _I’ll_ have all the stuff you aren't having!” He announced widening his arms all of a sudden, just as Nanako warned him that a waitress was walking right behind him. Of course, he sent a tray flying in the air and Nagisa stood mortified, beginning to touch around in order to help while Olivia began whining nervously as he sensed Nagisa was upset now.   
“I’ll handle it,” Nanako told him, and pushed him to sit down. “It’s all okay, Nagisa-chi,” she quickly added when she saw his expression getting dark.   
“Nagisa-chi? Nagisa?” Nanako called him after helping the waitress cleaning up and apologizing profusely. She touched his cheek when finally he raised his head at her. “It’s alright. It happens,” she murmured, dragging her chair to sit next to him. “Accidents happen, don’t worry…”  
“It’s not just this. I’m tired of this whole situation,” he finally spoke, in a low tone, as apparently his mood had changed again. “I’m tired…” He repeated with his eyes beginning to water. “I can’t imagine I’ll spend the rest of my life like this.”  
“Nagisa…”  
“And it’s only been two years. I’m exhausted of this and it’s _only_ been two years. I want to see where I’m going, I want to be able to do things on my own, I want to look at people’s faces and things…” He whined, and wiped his eyes sniffling. “Do you know how sad it is that I can’t see how people look when they age? I wanted to see what Sou-chan looks like now, and I couldn’t.” Nanako’s expression saddened, and she hugged him before frowning.  
“Wait, who’s Sou-chan?” She asked, interrupting him with a frown.  
“A… an old friend of Rin-chan’s. He came here to work at Ono’s repair shop for a bit, and we hung out a lot lately… I just wanted to see his face, because I only have memories of him,” he explained, in a grumble.   
She pursed her lips in a thoughtful expression, before suggesting as her visage brightened much similarly to how her brother’s own when he had an idea, “well, you could touch it. You could ask him if he’d allow you to touch his face and give yourself an idea.”   
Nagisa’s eyes wandered a little around as he thought about it, the thought buzzing in his head now.   
“That’s… something I thought about before, of course. But what if he thinks I’m weird…?” He mused tapping on his chin.  
“It’s not. And by the way, honey, why should you worry? Everybody’s going to think you’re weird at some point,” she retorted with affection and just a bit of amusement in her voice. “Most likely, as soon as they meet you.”  
“Hey, thanks a lot!” He protested with a full, adorable pout scrunching up his features.

Nanako laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much to say, because I ate so much for lunch and I feel like napping but I really should post this now XD I only have another written, so I'll probably post it like... next week? Anyway, merry Christmas and I hope you had/are having/will have a great one! ^^


	5. Chapter 5

Encouraged by his sister’s words, Nagisa programmed his GPS, more or less a week later, and grabbed Olivia’s leash as if he was getting ready to an adventure. After all, he was not sure Sousuke would accept or wouldn’t laugh at him for such a weird, awkward request, but he clenched his fists around the cane and quietly, slowly, made his way toward the repair shop. It should come relatively easy, since he had frequented that side of town, near to the woods, quite often to pray at the shrine.   
It was a quiet evening even for Iwatobi’s standards, so silent and relaxed that he could hear the Ocean murmur from the narrow paths that climbed up a slight rise of the ground. Even the wind seemed to have almost stilled, maybe because the spring was turning into summer quite fast, and the paralyzing hot and humidity were coming. However, the walk was mostly pleasant, especially with the fresh temperature which got slightly higher as his steps and the monotonous grating sound of his cane went on. 

Finally he arrived to the garage - as the GPS said - and he pushed the door open, being welcomed by a strong smell of car oil and bleach that Olivia huffed at. He scrunched his nose too, but he shook his head ignoring it.  
“Hello, kid, what can I do for you?” An old, gruff but gentle voice asked him, making him a bit scared, but he smiled courteously after gasping a bit surprised as if he had expected only Sousuke to be there.  
“Hello, Ono-san, I was wondering… is Sou-chan here?” He asked, looking in the voice’s general direction with a bit of a doubtful voice. Surely, had Sousuke been there, he would have said something. Or was he maybe not talking because he was angry at Nagisa for what had happened between them last? After all, it had been quite a few days since then and he felt none of the resentment he had been infused with by Sousuke’s words that evening.  
“Ah, no, I don’t need him today. You know, it’s kinda a slow day,” the man replied with a little smile in his voice too. “I think he’s home taking care of that shoulder of his. Do you want me to help you get there?”  
Nagisa flushed immediately, even though it sure was not the first time someone way older than him was offering to help him walk somewhere.   
“No… no, thank you, I have all the help I need,” he responded with a small, uncertain smile, while tapping his cane a little on the floor and shaking softly Olivia’s leash. The dog gave him a little confused bark, but kept looking around the place interestedly. “So it’s not much of a busy day, you say?”  
He stopped by for a good amount of time, chatting away casually with the old man who offered him a stool to sit on and some tea. That did not surprise Nagisa, after all he was one to keep everything he would need close by as well. He imagined it was the same for the old pal, even though for other reasons. They talked about Sousuke too, and Nagisa learnt that the guy was working a lot harder than he should and Nagisa wondered why he would strain his shoulder even more. Did he not want it to heal?   
In the end, he insisted to pay Ono for the drink, but the other refused categorically, and looked at him wander off with his cane and dog for a bit.  
“So, he should be home…” Nagisa mused out loud. Luckily, Sousuke had mentioned to him where his family home was while telling one of his childhood adventures with Rin.   
Sousuke was home indeed, blasting some instrumental music while making himself dinner, after a day spent relaxing at home, paying the bills and grocery shopping. He was quite satisfied with himself, because he had done pretty much everything he had needed to do in the last week, and he had even managed not thinking of either Nagisa nor Rin - it still happened, some days he still felt a pang of nostalgia for the times when they had been together. 

The bell rang interrupting his thoughts and his willingly lonely evening, which of course bothered him. He had spent most of the day dealing with people, it would have been great to have a bit of time alone, watching television or something else, do his daily exercise routines, and go straight to bed.   
However, when he opened the door, he blinked and then frowned a little, before finally asking, “Hazuki?”   
Nagisa smiled with his head hanging low a little, sniffing a heavy scent of grilled fish coming from the kitchen and some clear music reached his ears.  
“Hi, hi, Sou-chan!” He eventually greeted, raising his head a bit uncertain. “I hope I’m not disturbing you! Coming in!” He added, tapping on the floor before scratching on it to make his way inside.  
“Uh… come on in…” Sousuke muttered, his plans for the evening getting clearly crushed with each tap of the cane on his floor. “What’s up…?”   
Nagisa took a minute to find a place to sit - a small, not too comfortable old sofa with a rugged cover - before smirking up at the older.   
“Well, remember when I asked what you look like?” He asked, which brought a few seconds of silence and a bit of tension.  
“Yeah.”  
“Well, since we had our first fight and we’re comfortable enough around each other,” Nagisa joked, “I was thinking I’d like to get an idea of what you look like now… by touching your face. Can I? Please? I’m really curious!” He rushed to say, before the other could interrupt him.  
Sousuke blinked heavily at the request, with a slight blush appearing on his cheeks, and cleared his throat.   
“Uh… I guess that’s okay with me,” he replied. At that moment, he thanked himself for having put some music on, because the silence right now would have felt very awkward. He stood there for a few seconds while Nagisa smiled, naturally, and finally approached him, sitting next to him and turning his face to look at the blond locks falling on Nagisa’s face, attempting to hide his blind eyes but not quite managing, big as they were.   
Nagisa’s hands moved immediately, rose up from his lap, and began carefully feeling the air until they met warm skin. He realized he was touching Sousuke’s forehead, so he giggled and slowly, methodically, began brushing his fingertips down to the eyebrows, followed their wide arch, only to slide down his cheeks and come together at the chin passing by the man’s quite sharp jawline. Sousuke kept still, his eyes closed, his eyebrows creased just slightly with an effort not to show how awkward he was feeling.   
The younger’s fingers then moved up his cheeks again, this time attempting to gather information on how his cheekbones emerged - not much - and what his nose was like - pretty pointy. He palmed Sousuke’s brows again, this time with the intention of feel how deep his eyes were in the hollow under his brows. Not much. And then Nagisa finally, slowly, caressed with his fingertips all the way down to Sousuke’s lips. He bit softly on his own when he sensed some warmth on the cheeks, which meant the other had blushed, but how could he blame him? He probably was not used to it.  
His lips felt chapped, dry, but still feeling pleasant and quite plump under Nagisa’s skin. The latter hummed, appreciative.  
By then, Sousuke’s cheeks were burning despite the objective innocence of the act. Nagisa was just touching his face to look at him. But it didn’t help when the smaller man smiled at it, and his eyes focused directly where his thumbs were now outlining Sousuke’s lips, which the other instinctively made wet again with a brief lick.   
Sousuke could have pulled back, or asked him to stop, but his heart was rushing in its beats, in anticipation of who knows what, so he kept still as if he was afraid, like a deer in headlights. And when finally Nagisa’s fingers left his face, an incomprehensible but unpleasant squeeze made his guts drop. His warm hands held tightly around Nagisa’s own then, silence dawning on them so thick that not even the growing crescendo hitting the air at that moment from Sousuke’s stereo was able to break it. But it exploded the moment he leaned forward without thinking, tasted Nagisa’s still fresh lips without any warning. Not that Nagisa needed any. Sure, he gasped at first, but then his hands raised up again to cling onto the bigger male’s cheeks and then he let his lips open, while his body relaxed as if this was the plan from the beginning.   
Sousuke tasted of green tea and lemon, his mouth was burning and humid, his tongue already tapping experimentally inside of Nagisa and it made the latter groan, low, almost timid. Both their hands were now exploring each other’s features and necks, with Sousuke’s daring to slide along Nagisa’s side and settle at his skinny hip, his thumb teasing at the line of the younger’s hipbone. 

“Sou-chan,” Nagisa called in a soft mumble, but his heart was pounding in ways it had not in a lot of time. “Sou-chan,” he murmured again, having always liked how that nickname slid on his tongue. That seemed to call Sousuke back to reality, because he let go of Nagisa’s plump and now red lips with a wet pop, blinking now.   
“I’m sorry,” he replied, his blood seemingly rushing backwards to leave his face paler. “I’m…”  
“No, I liked it,” Nagisa reassured him, touching his cheeks again. “I like it.” Do it again, he seemed to be asking with a small grin. Sousuke questioned himself briefly, concluding he had liked kissing Nagisa too. He leaned forward again, his palm now open and rubbing on Nagisa’s thigh, which made the other sigh into the second kiss with a roll his hips.  
“Do you want to?” Nagisa breathed out, his fingers giving a tug at a strand of Sousuke’s hair. “I… haven’t had it in so much…”  
Sousuke froze at that, looked down at his hand now resting still on Nagisa’s leg, and thought about it quickly. Did he want sex with Nagisa? He had liked kissing him, truly, and he hadn’t gotten laid in a while too, his body responded positively. But should he?   
“Are you sure you’d want me out of everybody?”  
“Who’s everybody? My sister?” Nagisa joked, with just a bit of bitter sarcasm there. “I like you, though. I mean… there’s a reason why I’ve been wanting to spend all that time with you,” he confessed, with another blush expanding on his cheeks.   
“Rin says you’d make friends with a door, though,” Sousuke retorted.  
“That’s not true,” Nagisa protested, but with an amused smile, which then faded into a worried frown. “You… don’t like me? I mean, it’s fine, you just have to tell me,” he added, getting pinker and pinker in the face. 

Cute, Sousuke thought.   
“Well, if you’re okay with it…” he concluded, his palm rubbing up to Nagisa’s inner thigh and then cupping his junk to provoke a gasping little moan with little slow rubs. Cute, he thought again.   
“Yeah,” Nagisa exhaled, “yeah. Do you have the lube and stuff?” He asked then, with his voice tightening up slightly.   
“I do,” Sousuke replied, with his voice going lower, now heated up. He stood, reached down to grab Nagisa’s hand, and pulled him carefully to his bedroom down the hall, with a small warning about a carpet on the tatami before leaving him standing next to the bed and pulling a drawer open from his cupboard, then another, and then another with increasing anxiety. When he finally found his lube and condoms - buried under his underwear - he took a deep relieved sigh, to which Nagisa responded with an amused chuckle, before starting to feel around himself until he found the bed and sat on it, bouncing a little to test its hardness and humming in approval. He took off his trousers, dropping them on the floor with a certain disregard, and then his sweatshirt, then sat on the bed waiting for a few seconds for Sousuke to do the same, and after he finally heard a soft thud near him and an even lighter scrunch of plastic. Then his hands got grabbed by big hands, and Sousuke pushed him down on the mattress. Nagisa squeaked, but didn’t protest. And then they were kissing again, pressed one on the other needy and lustful now, with heavy, raw breaths.   
“Are you sure?” Sousuke asked again, his lips a mere breath away from Nagisa’s.   
“Yeah I’m sure! Just do it, Sou-chan,” Nagisa urged him, amused but also doubtlessly turned on.   
“Just wanted to make sure,” Sousuke muttered, before going for a kiss again.   
Nagisa frowned slightly, and right then he turned his head again. “Do you always tiptoe like that around people you want to do this with?” He asked.  
Sousuke’s chest heaved, and he blinked. “I was just making sure…” He repeated, with a tone of confusion.   
“I’m blind, not made of glass,” Nagisa pointed out, a bit cold. But then he nibbled on his already swollen lip, before lifting his head again and ending up kissing Sousuke’s chin. “It’s okay, just… get on with it,” he added softer, and pushed his waist up to meet the other’s and make his point. Sousuke groaned low, and eventually nodded, brought both of Nagisa’s wrists over his head pressing them on the pillow, and with the other hand he quickly slid inside the other’s boxers, touching him. He was already half-hard. Nagisa’s back arched at that, his breath out in one exhale. He dug his heels on the mattress, giving himself leverage to thrust against Sousuke’s hand, even though he was still dry.   
“You’re eager, eh?” The other teased, before attacking his neck, leaving some mild bites on Nagisa’s smooth skin, and received a groaning hum in reply.  
“It’s a good thing I like foreplay,” Nagisa retorted, his lips quirking up a little. “Just tell me what you want me to do,” he added then, in a practical tone.  
“Just lay there and be cute,” Sousuke replied, and blushed right after realizing how corny and over-used that was. But it gained him a giggle, so he didn’t mind.   
“No, but… I want to do more than that,” Nagisa protested, all of a sudden more proactive.   
“Do you wanna top?”  
“No, I like bottoming, but… I don’t just wanna lay there.”  
Sousuke kissed Nagisa’s cheek and then his lips again, taking time, before he finally chewed a little on his own.  
“Um, do you want to ride me?” He offered. Nagisa nodded immediately, and enthusiastic.   
“Deal!” 

They kissed for a few more moments, while getting more and more familiar with each other’s bodies. Exercise and a balanced diet sure had kept Sousuke’s form at its top despite not being technically an athlete anymore, while Nagisa had probably gained a couple pounds given his quieter lifestyle, but he had not gained much after all. He was just slightly softer, which Sousuke could really not complain about.   
“Can I say you’re cute?” He commented, with his strong hand still pressing both of Nagisa’s wrists against the warmed up pillow.   
“You may,” Nagisa responded, with a confident smirk. “My sister spends so much time giving me grief about my hair thou-aaah, Sou-chan—.” He moaned with a vague protest for being cut off when Sousuke’s hand pumped vigorously around his now fully erect sex.   
At a certain point his wrists were freed by bigger male who let go so that he could get rid of his own underwear, and then help Nagisa out of his as well. He lay down next to Nagisa, and then gently pulled him on top of himself, reached out for the bottle of lube and squeezed some on the palm of his hand, but Nagisa snatched it from him to lubricate himself as well, with his breath coming in short puffs now, excitedly.   
He reached under himself with one of his digits and then with a bit of hesitation he began pushing it in, with small and then increasingly shorter consecutive groans, while Sousuke looked over. He could not help taking in every expression on Nagisa’s face, so different from those he was showing in their previous encounters.   
In a corner of his mind, he stupidly thought it wasn’t fair other people had seen Nagisa in those situations. And malign, a thought also crossed his mind about how he could understand why Ryuugazaki had stuck around. But he grimaced inwardly at both those considerations, and simply rested his hand on Nagisa’s hip, with a lustful look to the elegant, pretty body on top of him, while he stimulated his own cock almost lazily with the other. Of course, Nagisa had had a growth spurt, but his structure was still small, slender. In a way, seeing muscles flex evidently under his skin almost felt weird.   
Two more of Nagisa’s own fingers had spread him enough, so he announced among short, excited breaths that he was ready, and hovered on Sousuke’s fully hard erection, feeling around his torso to balance on him, and pressing down with his own body once he was sure he was not going to topple over.  
Once the head of Sousuke’s cock was in, Nagisa let out a small squeak, trembling. Sousuke looked up at him, holding his hips, and despite the stimuli going straight to his own brain and already beginning to make him dizzy, he frowned with concern.   
“You okay?” He asked, breathy.   
Nagisa, as a reply, pushed down even harder with a little sob, but nodded fierce, slowly quirking the corners of his lips in a smile.  
“Yeah. I just didn’t expect you to feel so huge,” he muttered, and then laughed softly, took a deep breath and stilled. “You don’t mind if I just…”  
“N-no, don’t worry,” Sousuke cut him off, doing his best to not thrust upwards. 

“You know, I don’t expect you to stay,” Nagisa said out of the blue, his head tilted forward as he tried to coax his body into loosening up.  
“W… what?” Sousuke asked, fumbling. “What are you talking… about?”  
“I don’t expect you to hang around here, I just… generally don’t expect anything from you, so you can relax.”  
Sousuke blinked heavily, his hands sliding just slightly upwards on Nagisa’s body, and he hummed more and more confused before retorting, “where does this even come from?”  
Nagisa kept silent for a few seconds, biting on his lip harder than before, but then eventually he slammed down. He let out a throaty moan as he did so, his insides suddenly having to accomodate for Sousuke.  
“Oi, Nagisa…” he stammered, after having moaned louder than before, his head spinning for the sudden pleasure. He sensed perfecty all the warmth, the tightness inside of Nagisa, but still it felt slightly wrong. “W-what do you mean, what are you saying?” He insisted, but Nagisa shook his head.  
Which made Sousuke frustrated. Quick, he reversed their positions, and Nagisa ended up with legs in the air and lying on his back, surprise painted on his face, then Sousuke got out of him.  
“What is that supposed to mean?” The other growled. “Do you think I don’t care for you or something?”  
Why was he even mad anyway? As far as he was concerned, Hazuki was none of his business. Why was he even angry now?  
“We’ve just met, okay? It’s okay if we’re not all buddy-buddy now, that’s how it always ends anyway,” Nagisa spat back, now equally bothered.   
“Fuck, Nagisa, I can care for you without being your boyfriend, okay?” Sousuke retorted, and sighed. “Listen, I know you’re bitter because of your situation, and probably some asshole told you stuff like ‘I love you’ and then left you, but it doesn’t mean you should expect the same things from everybody,” he finally said, and sighed sitting on his heels, wondering when he had started wearing his heart on his sleeve. Probably to compensate that Nagisa wasn’t doing it anymore. “And anyway, don’t exclude that something might… happen, between us. I mean, you’re cute, and I actually like spending time with you, and you seem to be mature enough to handle other people, and…”  
“So do you like me?” Nagisa asked, in a lower tone, but still it broke Sousuke’s sentence.  
“I… don’t know, okay? I just felt like something was happening back there and then we ended up almost having sex, I didn’t think about the implications of every single thing I was doing,” Sousuke explained, or at least tried to be as eloquent as he could in his current state.   
“Fine by me,” Nagisa replied, crossing his arms. “Let’s go on,” he added, and smiled up at Sousuke, his face and thoughts cleared up.  
“You’re weird,” Sousuke blurted out, and the smaller man laughed, before opening his legs.  
Sousuke took a couple of deep breaths, but it didn’t seem hard for him to get back into the mood then.

After the both of them had climaxed, they ended up lying on their backs panting, both of them flushed to their necks, and shivering since they were now feeling the room’s temperature, mild and not as high as their bodies’.   
“I… I liked that,” Nagisa commented, flushed, with his legs still spread obscenely, and touching his still wet slit lazily with a little moan.  
“Me too,” Sousuke replied, between huffs, his face starting to go back to its normal color. Silence fell between them, in that moment, and yet he did not feel tense or nervous at it, like every other time. It felt comforting, even, to be surrounded only by the muffled sounds of his music in the living room, but otherwise nothing else. It was pleasant, still and peaceful like the pool’s water after a race. It was Nagisa who, again, broke the silence.   
“So that maternity leave is lasting for… I guess another couple of weeks, more or less…” he mused, probably wondering what else could happen in that span. “And then you’re going back to Tokyo, right?”  
“That’s the plan,” Sousuke eventually replied, with his nose scrunching with disappointment. He was feeling so good with silence.   
Nagisa hummed, a soft sound barely perceptible.   
“Well… I guess we shouldn’t do this again then, if you’re going to leave.”  
Sousuke turned his head to look at him, but Nagisa’s face was unperturbed. Only a little twitch of his jaw betrayed any particular feeling.   
“I guess you’re right,” he replied, before sitting up and looking around for his clothes.   
“Are you going to kick me out or can I chill?” The other asked abruptly with a perfect passive-aggressive tone, which sounded really off on him. Sousuke looked at him, his eyes going wide with shock.  
“What is the problem with you?” He snapped, more surprised than anything, as he kept staring at Nagisa.   
“Nothing is the problem. I’m sorry, I’ll go,” he then replied after sitting up, the pads of his fingers brushing on the mattress. “Sorry about that.”  
“No, you’re sounding contradictory. First you tell me that you don’t expect me to stay or something like that, then we have sex and now you’re acting like I’m hurting you by not staying! What is your angle here, once and for all?!” Sousuke finally asked, and the moment Nagisa scrambled to stand and leave, he grabbed both his shoulders, pushing him against the cold hard wall of the bedroom. “Say things clearly. What are you thinking? What is your problem?”  
Nagisa’s breath slowed down and he smiled a bit, his eyes lost somewhere, drooping, in a sign that he was not going to keep it in, after all.  
“I was interested in you way before last month. And I don’t want to really like you, because if I do then I’m screwed,” he simply stated. “Especially if you’re going back to the city. Who wants to be here when Tokyo has everything you could possibly need? I tried to avoid forming anything meaningful with people after Rei-chan, because then they go away eventually and I’m sick of not being able to do all those things I did before, I’m sick of feeling like I couldn’t possibly have anything normal anymore. I need someone I can actually rely on to get… something normal again.”  
Sousuke’s frown deepened.   
“So you just decided you can’t rely on me? That I’m not trustworthy?” He blurted, letting go of Nagisa’s shoulders.  
“That’s not what I said and again, why do you care?” the other retorted. “I’m just looking after myself, for once.”  
Sousuke’s mouth hung open for a few seconds, and he frowned.   
“So you’re saying I should just stop running into you.”  
Nagisa lowered his head, with a light puff, and then shrugged without anybefore beginning to feel his way around Sousuke’s bedroom in order to go pick his own clothes up without replying. Silently, the other helped him with it, now in a somber atmosphere.  
He really did like silence a lot more than words, today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realized I have 10 days to finish this fic before the challenge it participates in ends, so I'll probably post chapters according to the time I have. It's almost over anyway (I'm counting another 2 or max 3 chapters more) so hopefully I'll manage to end it by Jan. 10. It was sort of rushed and messy since I only really began questioning things in it when chapter 1 had already been posted, so I'm sorry if some things end up not being clear or if things are going to be left open.  
> And that's why I don't generally write long fics anyway. Oh well, I need a good word count to start off next month, so I'll try to write chapters as long as possible. If you're still here reading this, thank you so much. I appreciate everything, the views and the kudos and your presence. I'm really grateful. Thank you!


	6. Chapter 6

The next month went by slowly, for Sousuke. He would wake up, look around his old place, have some breakfast, walk all the way to Ono’s garage. The old man took to notice the younger male was particularly quiet in those days, as if lately he had seemed to be a bit more active, a bit more thoughtful, just a little bit happier. And it was not like Sousuke had stopped seeing Nagisa entirely. The two still happened to cross one another, Nagisa always in company of Olivia and tapping and scratching his cane on the floor with a neutral expression, but those times Sousuke wouldn’t walk up to Nagisa and talk to him. He would just turn his eyes away, although sometimes the other would slow his step down, as if he had learnt how Sousuke’s step specifically sounded, or as if he could smell, sense him somehow.   
Sousuke ended up calling Rin more often, sounding… ‘ _okay_ ’. That was the routine for those days, at any rate. Rin eventually ended up suspecting something was up, especially because, lately, Sousuke had sounded different. Even just slightly.   
“Oi, Sousuke, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he started on the phone one time. “Did something happen?”  
“Huh? Like what?” Sousuke asked, mixing his tea with a bit of sugar as he looked outside to the garden of his family’s house. It was quite small, but pretty, and the grass was growing wildly together with a few bushes. The day was a bit cloudy, and he thought maybe it was going to rain later.  
“Well… you sound a bit off,” Rin pointed out. “Like, you sound the way you did before our last relay together. Are you okay?”  
Sousuke frowned, wondering whether his demeanor had changed at all and that much in the last two months.   
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied monotonous, stopping the regular movement of his hand to look down at its deep brown color, then fished the tea bag out of his cup.   
“You don’t sound ‘fine’,” Rin retorted, with a slight arch of his brows. “Do I have to punch it out of you?” He continued, with an underside of a playful threat, but sounding quite serious as well. “I don’t want you to get yourself down.”  
“It’s fine, Rin,” Sousuke sighed, “I’m not getting myself down. It’s just a boring day.”  
“Didn’t you go help old Ono out?” Rin insisted.   
Sousuke grumbled, nodding. “Yeah. It’s just I had a bit of a bad month.” He could not find another way to explain it without going into details. Although, to think about it, he shouldn’t have mentioned it at all if he really did not want to talk about it. Right?  
“Why?” Rin pressed immediately, which was how Sousuke knew that was the one thing he was waiting for, so he exhaled loudly.   
“It’s just… nothing. It’s just been a bad time,” he replied, biting down on his lip. Now Rin was never going to let go…  
“Come on, don’t give me that crap. I know you, Sousuke. You sound like something is eating you up. The more you try to hide it, the more I see right through you!” Rin growled, indeed, sounding nervous and impatient now. “What’s bothering you? Come on, you can tell me.”

“Ugh,” Sousuke grunted, his aquamarine eyes lifting up in frustration. And then he finally gave up, figuring it was useless to keep denying it now, and after all he sort of thought Rin might come up with something to say. “I guess… it’s because of Hazuki.”  
“Nagisa? What did he do?” Rin asked, leaning over the table at his place four hundred miles away.  
“Uh,” the other began, hesitating as he wondered how he could put it in a way that would sound as less awkward as possible. After all, he was not sure anybody knew about his sexual encounter with Nagisa and the weird vibe the two of them had had going since then. “Uh, well, we hung out a lot…”  
“Yeah, I know, you’re hanging out like every day, no? Aren’t you anymore?”  
“Um. Well… something happened a bit ago. He showed up at my place insisting that he wanted to touch my face to like… ‘see’ me, so I let him, but then we, uh… well, it was a bit out of nowhere, but to cut it short we ended up having sex, and then— he started acting weird, like that meant we were together or something,” Sousuke explained, accelerating his words halfway through. “And then he got mad at me for some reason. Like, he said… we were not going to do it again because he didn’t want to get more involved and he needs someone to rely on. And that someone was clearly not me, according to him.”  
“That… doesn’t sound like Nagisa at all,” Rin commented, calmly. “Then again, after Rei…”  
“You knew about that?” Sousuke interrupted him, with his fingers tightening around his teaspoon. Then he felt a bit stupid. Of course Rin would know: he was still friends with Hazuki and Hazuki’s friends. And of course Haruka would have known first, and then obviously Makoto and Rin.  
“Well, yeah. Our whole group of friends was shaken by it. You know, Nagisa and Rei were the kind of couple in your group of friends that you think is going to last forever. We were all pretty upset when they broke up, also because we thought we would have to take sides, but Nagisa was against us doing that,” Rin said, nodding pensively as if he was talking to himself. “He didn’t want us to be mad at Rei, so we kept talking to both of them more or less normally. Eventually. Apparently now they’re okay though.”  
“Yeah, because he doesn’t want people to worry about him or something. Anyway, that’s what happened,” Sousuke concluded, rubbing his forehead, now with another long sigh.  
“Wow, you sound _upset_ about this,” Rin observed, and Sousuke noticed how there was no surprise at the _big reveal_. Had he known Sousuke and Nagisa would eventually get together in some way? “He gets under your skin, doesn’t he?” He then added, affectionately.   
“It’s kind of my fault though. I talked to him first. And I’m _not_ upset. Just… I don’t like being told I’m unreliable, that’s all it is.”  
Rin scoffed. “Yeah, right. If I could see your face I bet I’d be seeing you moping around for sure…”  
“Shut the fuck up, Rin,” Sousuke barked back, and a soft laughter came at him through the phone. “You really shouldn’t be talking about moping.”  
“Woah, low blow there!” Rin replied, in a teasing tone. “Just talk to him… I can’t believe I’m giving _you_ romantic advice,” he continued with a smirk, a few seconds later.   
“Oh, I bet you’ve seen enough dramas to be an expert in shit like this,” Sousuke snarked at him, with a deep frown.   
“I’m clearly not,” the athlete replied, now in a bittersweet tone.   
Sousuke’s eyebrows creased briefly, before he took a long, heavy breath. He had detected a hint of something there. Maybe regret on Rin’s part for breaking up? Maybe regret for having been immature and scared of commitment back a while ago? He shrugged, not wanting to deal with second thoughts, not at that moment. “Anyway, that’s what’s bothering me. Can we talk about something el—?”  
“So wait, do you think you _could_ take care of him without abandoning him?” Rin cut him off, ignoring that request. His tone was low and serious now. “I would imagine he feels lonely most of the time, even though he has his sister and his dog. But he’s lively, he needs friends, too. And he doesn’t like being lonely. Like, _ever_.”  
“I noticed,” Sousuke replied, with a quieter inflection to his voice.   
“So the question is, are you going to stay or leave?” Rin asked. “If you’re going to stay, you have to commit to it. The way you committed to me and to swimming. And it should be your own choice.”  
“I don’t know… wait, how did you decide I’m even interested in the guy?” Sousuke protested, now clenching his hand in a fist on the table.   
“Sousuke… this entire conversation is basically about you being interested in being with him and him pushing you away,” Rin reminded him, coming off as a bit amused, but understanding as well. “You’re the one who hasn’t figured that out.”  
Sousuke kept silent for a while, mulling that notion in his head, picked it apart. He did not deny the first part, either. Did he want to spend every day in Iwatobi, most likely, as opposed to being in Tokyo? Could he manage helping Nagisa on top of work like his sister did? The first thing that crossed his mind was that he did not know. _Maybe_. He had to try before knowing.  
“That’s a bit rich coming from you, talking about confusion,” he finally replied with a slight bitterness, to which Rin snorted in a small laughter. “And it seems to be a theme in my life, being confused by myself.”  
“Sorry. In my defense, I’m not that confused anymore,” he replied, sounding _sweet_ , even.  
“You’ve always been confused. About Nanase, about me, about whatever was going on between you and Tachibana,” Sousuke grunted, referencing to a very brief, fruitless fling Rin had had.   
“Well, nothing was going on with Makoto. We just fooled around, but it was nothing like whatever I had with you and Haru,” Rin objected, although he was quite amused. That was before Haruka realized he was not really that interested in dating. Before he realized he just wanted to _feel the water_. “Anyway, back on track, you should discuss this calmly with Nagisa. Before you go back to Tokyo, I mean. In the end what do you have here?”  
“My therapist,” Sousuke replied immediately.  
“Like you can’t find another.”  
“Are you trying to pair me up with your friends?” Sousuke protested, with a voice that sounded pretty much irritated, if not defensive.   
“I’m suggesting you to consider it. I mean, you basically admitted it yourself: you’re interested. You don’t dislike him, anyway,” Rin hummed. “I just want you to stop regretting things too. Your shoulder’s basically fucked, it doesn’t mean your life is over,” he continued then, sounding even more serious. “Nagisa would be good for you. He’s still pretty much as cheerful as a puppy, no? He’d help with that constant awful attitude you’ve got going.”  
“Oi, fuck you,” Sousuke spat back, dry.  
“See? That’s what I mean,” Rin responded, with a placid grin, tapping his fingers on the table.   
“Again, you’re one to talk,” Sousuke snapped back, but then he finally gave up, leaning back with a long sigh. “Ugh, fine. I’ll talk to him.”  
“Good boy,” Rin praised him, and chuckled. “Oi, by the way, say hi to him from me,” he added. “And by the way, I don’t watch _that_ many dramas.” 

They went on talking on the phone for a while, about other things. About plans for the summer, organizing something to do together, about cool events on the coast for the next two months, as in the beginning of summer.   
After hanging up, Sousuke felt a bit tired from the day. He did not feel like having another long and possibly exhausting conversation - and his phone was almost running off battery anyway -, but while talking about unrelated things he had decided to hear from Nagisa anyway. Now. Even though he had been given quite the ultimatum before anything could even happen. He just sent a text.  
~ “ _Nagisa, I want to talk to you. Are you free tomorrow_?”  
He went back to cleaning his rooms, finding something to do in order not to think too hard - why was he so upset anyway? -, but when he came back there was no reply. And that made him quite nervous.   
~ “ _I can’t believe I’m sending you two messages in a row. Just give me a place and time_.”  
The thought that it seemed like he was starting to act _clingy_ of all things irritated him to no end, which was why he just dropped the phone again, more stubbornly looking for something else to do.   
A reply came much later in the day, during dinner - which he was consuming alone in front of the television, finally distracted from it.  
~ “ _Sorry, I was at the hospital. Nothing to worry about, just a check-up. Tomorrow, at 2pm, the kiosk_?”  
Nagisa’s reply seemed to be so dry, _cold_ even. Sousuke guessed it would be an uncomfortable conversation, the next day.   
~ “ _Sounds good. See you tomorrow_.”

Typing that short text had made Nagisa nervous. Fidgeting, he wondered whether it was a good idea at all, to meet Sousuke after having been so uncomfortable in their previous talk. He had grown a lot more attached to that man since he had come back to Iwatobi. Nagisa had liked him as a person before, but now his perception of him had changed slightly, even though in the end it had been just sex. After all, that thought and that attraction had been there since the first time he had seen him, all grumpy and quiet if not slightly snobbish, quite like _Rei_ had seemed to be when they’d met. Had he fallen for the guy, after all? He remembered their long walks around Iwatobi, their lunches together and the silence and comfort they had shared.  
Olivia looked up at him wagging his tail and whining at him, and he realized he was needed.   
“Ah, sorry, Olivia,” he hummed, crouching and feeling around until he found smooth fur and fed the pet, distracted by the optimist and at the same time melancholic thought that if things would go wrong in the end, at least he would have a friend near him. And speaking of friends, he wondered if they missed him like he missed them. Sometimes his thoughts would still, lingering on the fading memory of a picture representing his elementary school team - Rin, Haruka, Makoto, and himself - smiling happy and cheerful after winning a relay, without any worry in the world. And he would remember all the fun they’d had throughout their history together. Then Rei had become part of the picture and… things had become complicated. Now, Sousuke was a comforting presence, but Nagisa was afraid it would ruin those good memories, that he would allow himself to hurt someone else and be broken up with again.   
Something Sousuke had said came back to him, ‘you sound like Rin’. He remembered a time when their friend - Sousuke’s ex - had hit his lowest point, had sunk into a spiral of self-loathing and anger, bitterness, disappointment that had ended up making everybody suffer. Was that how Nagisa was coming off as?   
“But what can I do? I _am_ … angry and disappointed,” he admitted to himself, out loud. Olivia raised his head to tilt it to the side, looking at him, and then went back to eating. He sat next to the dog, carefully, and pet him quietly, while still lost in thought.   
What would he tell Sousuke? That he was scared, and that he did not really want him to go away? But then, once admitted that, it would mean that he really cared a lot more than he let show. He smirked, considering that now he understood why Rin and Haruka had seemed to deny their feelings so often. Was he turning a bit more like them?   
He combed his hair back, with a sigh, and stood up again, deciding he would worry about that later.

For example, the next day when he got ready to go out, Olivia’s leash in one hand, his cane in another, the GPS’ earbuds on and wearing a nice sweatshirt. He meant to take a short walk with the dog, before meeting Sousuke. Unwind a little before facing what was going to be a very awkward conversation.   
The wind was pleasant and warm, not too humid, and it felt so pleasant on his face. The temperature was a bit colder than it should be since Spring was quietly turning into Summer, but he did not complain. He just clenched his fingers tighter around the leash and allowed that mild weather to calm him down, while he lazily made his way on the sidewalk next to the beach with his cane rattling on the stone floor. He met some acquaintances, mostly retired elders taking a walk in a loop similar to his own. Although it was not a depressing thought and he chatted with them amiably he did feel slightly out of place. He was supposed to be out in the world, doing awesome things, he told himself for the umpteenth time. And the idea of getting used to it sounded terrifying too. How was he supposed to accept a lifestyle of calm when he had always been the essence of benevolent chaos and noise, always unapologetic about it?   
Then again, with how things went, he had begun turning out like that, more silent, sadder despite efforts to appear just as cheerful in the presence of others, because he still did not really like to make them worry or be a burden to people. Which was one of the things he hated about blindness: needing others to take care of some needs he could not deal with alone anymore. That could not be helped, but it still scratched at his guts, making bitterness rise up his throat. However, he decided he would smile at Sousuke, apologize, and listen to what he had to say. After all, he thought he owed him that much for all the company he had received in those weeks.   
In the meanwhile, Sousuke had arrived to the kiosk, checking his watch to make sure the time was not wrong ( _why am I so nervous_?) and starting to tap on the bar when the minutes passed and Nagisa was not there ( _why do I worry so much_?). The owner of the kiosk eventually asked him whether he was going to buy anything, so he ordered a lemonade.   
While sipping, the idea that Nagisa had stood him up popped in his head with a hint of bitterness, but he decided he would wait ( _why_?) and see. Maybe Nagisa got lost, and Sousuke of all people could not blame him for it in that case . But his fingers tapped harder on the plastic surface he was sitting by, and the old man behind it glared at him irritated, clearing his throat meaningfully. Sousuke realized that and a slight shade of pink appeared on his cheeks, just barely noticeable.   
“Sorry, I’m just waiting for someone and he’s late…”  
The old man pressed his lips together, maybe in disapproval as he surely knew who that _someone_ was, but said nothing while he kept cleaning the bar. 

Finally Nagisa appeared along the sidewalk, led by Olivia, with his usual cane tapping and hovering on the ground. Sousuke’s chest breathed pathetically then ( _why am I acting like a teenager in love_?).   
“Oi, Nagisa,” he called, waving and immediately after he felt like an idiot because _of course, he can’t see it_. Sometimes it felt like Nagisa was still perfectly fine… He glanced at the man next to him who just threw him a look, maybe an amused one, so he blushed even harder. _Hazuki turned me into an imbecile, it’s his fault_. _How? When? How could I allow it_?   
“Ah, Sou-chan!” Nagisa responded, sounding cheerful with a big smile plastered on his face, and as Olivia brought him that way he folded the cane in one piece that he could place in his purse comfortably. “Sorry I’m late, I just decided I wanted to take a walk before…” He added, tilting his head adorably with a small and playful, apologetic giggle.   
“It’s fine,” Sousuke replied, low. “Do you want something to drink?”  
“I can buy it myself,” Nagisa said even lower.  
“I insist,” Sousuke retorted, now louder.   
Nagisa took a small sigh. “Okay, fine. I’ll have some strawberry juice,” he quietly replied giving up with a smile.   
The man looking at them nodded and then glanced at Sousuke, pulling out the bottle with Nagisa’s choice and pouring some, then put it down next to him with an eloquent thud.   
“So… you called me out to talk about that, right?” Nagisa started in a calm tone, and took a sip.   
“Yes but… I want to know if you’re alright first,” Sousuke indirectly asked, and bent closer. Luckily, the barman became busy with someone else, so he did not see Nagisa smile a bit sadly.   
“Yeah. It was just a check to make sure my eyes aren’t getting worse or something. And… I’m sorry I was an asshole,” he replied, and bit gently on his own lip.   
Sousuke was reduced to silence at that, not having expected an apology. But after a couple of seconds he replied, “I guess I didn’t really understand your point of view.”  
Nagisa sighed, and passed his fingers through his own hair. “Do you understand it now?” He asked.  
“I guess I do. And you might be right,” Sousuke admitted. “There’s just something I don’t understand. About, well, me I guess,” he added glancing away and sipping on his lemonade.   
“What is that?” Nagisa questioned, curiously.   
Sousuke looked over, noticing once again the way Nagisa’s hair seemed to shine once it was hit by the sun, and the various shades of color his irises pierced him with, even though he knew Nagisa did not see him. He chewed the inside of his cheek.   
“Why I got upset. I was bothered by how you told me you basically, well, didn’t trust me to stay with you in case of a relationship, but then again I don’t know that I would be reliable. There was only one person I felt _that_ way about, and that is Rin.”  
Nagisa’s eyes lowered, with a slightly defeated air.  
“But that didn’t end up lasting anyway, despite my efforts to make it work,” Sousuke continued, scratching his head. “Isn’t it? I mean, there isn’t a relationship you’re sure is going to last forever. Still, people get into relationships constantly, even when they doubt about them.”  
“In our case though, you’re going to leave very soon, so what’s the point?” Nagisa asked, low. “Even if we weren’t together in that sense, you’d still be away, so what’s the point?”  
Sousuke paused, leaning his chin on the palm of his hand.   
“Well, I don’t have a stable job in Tokyo, I just happened to find some stuff here and there. It wasn’t really stable. If I find one in Iwatobi, I might just move back here. I mean, it’s not like my social life is that intense there,” he murmured, with twists making his stomach ache.   
“Would you really move for me though? You don’t seem like one who would do that on a whim,” Nagisa mused, but with a surprised tone and expression.   
“No, I wouldn’t. I’m just saying that could be possible. Tokyo has more possibilities, but in the end the jobs I find there I could get pretty much anywhere else. I mean… it wouldn’t mean giving up on everything. It’d be a good situation either way, except you’re fun to be around and I like talking to you,” Sousuke concluded, and swallowed. His cards were on the table now, and a stillness came down between them.   
“Well… I’m fun and you like talking to me, it sounds more like a friendship than anything,” Nagisa reflected, looking down at Olivia and petting him.   
“Whatever it would be, don’t write people off just because they’re not Ryuugazaki.” Sousuke finally spat out, with his face relaxing. _Was that my problem all along_?  
Nagisa froze for a few seconds. “I don’t compare people to Rei-chan…” he started, but then his expression cleared up as he moved on.   
“So would you be my friend? I mean, a real friend… even though I’d be a burden?” He asked, with a small light in his eyes. Friendship was okay. It was very okay.  
“I never said you’re a burden. Who says that?” Sousuke pressed, moving closer as he had completely forgotten about the old man who was now eyeing them more and more frequently. “You’re blind, so? You seem to be relatively independent. You’re not one who would ask for more than they need either, isn’t it?”  
“That’s not the problem, Sou-chan. You’re not in my shoes, and you don’t know how it is to live with me. Like, some days, I just start crying because I hear fireworks and I can’t look at them. I get angry and cold because I can’t do something as simple as read a book not written in braille. I spend whole days refusing to go outside because there are things that I can’t enjoy now despite how much I try and how much I can use my other senses. And some nights, I remember how it feels like to drown and the next morning I’m with a really bad mood the whole time. I’m not much like the guy I used to be anymore. I’m a bit like him when I’m _really_ happy and sane, I guess… and that was so much better for me, but I can’t help it.”  
Sousuke looked down at his drink, listening. He had a tough time trying to conciliate all that with the person in front of him. But he guessed, either way, it could still sound worse. And it also felt like Nagisa was pushing him away.  
“Nagisa, this is a lot more than I expected, but… does it mean you actually want me to stop seeing you?”  
Nagisa tilted his head left and right, dubious. About to reply, he was interrupted by a cough coming from the barman somewhere on his right. _Ugh, then don’t eavesdrop, old man… what a pain_.  
“Let’s go walk, yeah?” He asked then, moving his eyes around again, in a sign of nervousness.   
Sousuke nodded, biting down on his lip and getting his wallet. After paying, he touched Nagisa’s arm to let him know he could lean on his, and then they proceeded to walk on, with the Ocean whooshing far away from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woop, I let 2 weeks pass since the last chapter. The thing is I've been writing a ton of short one-shots for a porn fest this month and they took all of my will to write, and this is the last chapter I had aside that was already written. Also, obviously it's going to take a bit more time for the story to end since I wrote another story for the challenge this fic was for and I'm not in a rush anymore, so I'm thinking I'll end it in February.   
> And admittedly I'm in a low inspiration period right now. Anyway I think it'll be two more chapters, three at best if I write a short epilogue... maybe?? I'm not really good at writing long stories and it should be quite evident by now. Heh sowie. I still intend to bring this story to an end anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

Eventually, while strolling along the beach with their feet naked, the mildly hot sand under their plants, they agreed whatever was going on between them needed to be taken slow.   
“No more casual sex,” Nagisa established, and raised a finger in the air which met a salty and fresh breeze rushing like ghostly fingers through his hair.   
“I can agree,” Sousuke replied, even though he had appreciated their physical encounter a while ago. “You won’t pretend to be okay when you aren’t,” he decided in exchange, and glared down at the other.  
“I… I guess I can do that,” Nagisa responded with a sigh, tightening the hold of his hand around Sousuke’s arm. Olivia was leading the way as usual, in a calm trot, only stopping a few seconds at a time to sniff around, but always scoffing at the smells he found.   
“You’ll have to accept my mood swings. I’m still seeing a therapist, but sometimes I still hate everything,” he added then, in a low mutter. Sousuke looked at him again, with his chest tightening and his eyes squinting just a little.   
“I can deal with that too,” he said with the vague image of Rin flashing in front of him, and then looked far off with a distraught look. After a few steps, he heard a loud squeak and a whine, and he looked down to realize he’d stepped on one of Olivia’s paws.   
“Oh. I’m sorry, buddy,” he mumbled, crouching down to pet him. “Your dog is so good,” he added with a smile, as the animal immediately forgave him and licked his hand. Nagisa stopped, with a sincere grin.   
“Yeah! I would be so lost without him,” Nagisa commented in a melancholic but quiet tone, crouching as well and joining Sousuke’s hands in petting Olivia’s fluffy fur. Sousuke observed the way Nagisa’s fingers trailed through the soft strands of dark and white hair, how they retained a childish playfulness while touching such a calm animal. It made him want to reach out and grab them, for some reason, but he kept his own bigger hands scratching lightly on Olivia’s back. The dog was a fleeting distraction, and eventually Nagisa talked to Sousuke again.  
“I don’t know why you would even bother with me, but thanks,” he caught back up with his head hanging low. Sousuke’s chest kept clenching, as he imagined that kind of quiet sadness had become a usual companion in Nagisa’s life.   
“Nagisa, you’re not a bother,” he repeated, again, but the other shook his head. Sousuke sighed, helping him up again and they both resumed their walk. “What makes you think that, really?”  
“I just do,” Nagisa replied, shrugging with an empty stare to the moving water.  
“You’re not, it’s just something you convinced yourself of!” Sousuke insisted, actually trying to reach out and tangle his fingers with Nagisa’s, but the other shook his hand away defensively. Having known even a little of just how touchy-feely Nagisa had been before the accident, Sousuke had a distinct feeling similar to that of having been hit to the chest. Not too hard, but it still ached. Nagisa did not want to hear it.  
“Sorry,” he murmured, vaguely aware of how their roles in their weird interactions had almost switched. And of how odd that was.   
Nagisa hummed softly, apparently already thinking of something else, and he smiled while hanging onto Sousuke’s arm again, changing the subject to the events he wanted to take part in during the summer. There were going to be festivals - among those, the traditional Squid Festival - and even rock concerts in bars and on the beach.   
“Rei-chan said he’s going to come in July and stay for a couple of weeks,” he told Sousuke with one of his bright smiles. “Will you already be in Tokyo?”  
At that, Sousuke pressed his lips a little together, but eventually shrugged. “I don’t know.”  
He really had no idea what to do once back to the city, honestly. Even without thinking of staying in Iwatobi for Nagisa - which was still a ludicrous concept - he was not really sure going to Tokyo had been a good idea.   
“Because,” Nagisa continued, tilting his head, “I’d love for all of us to hang out together. To… you know, to be the way we used to be in high school. I’d be really happy if we hung out together again, all of us. Like, you know, like that time when we had the water gun fight. That’s one of the best memories I have.”  
“I don’t know. I’ll tell you when I’ll have an idea of what to do with my life for the next few years,” Sousuke muttered, not even sounding as irritated as he suddenly was.   
“What’s your problem?” Nagisa asked with a nervous edge to his voice.  
“My problem,” Sousuke began, stopping again. “Is your attitude. Like your life is over and your regrets are impossible to fix.”  
Nagisa let go of his arm, silently walking on with a hard expression now.  
“Nagisa!”  
“It’s none of your business,” the other hissed, not looking back.   
“Nagisa…” Sousuke repeated, and grabbed his arm to stop him. “Ugh, you’re such a pain,” he then complained, regretting it right after even though it was more a saying than anything.  
“Then leave! Who forces you to stay? Leave so you’ll never have to deal with me again!” Nagisa yelled a bit louder and coming off more dramatic than he intended to, turning around and looking in Sousuke’s general direction while Olivia, in a nervous display, growled softly with his ears tilting back.   
“That’s not what I meant,” Sousuke replied, moving closer. “But anyway, stop thinking you’re a bother. Seriously, I know that it’s never been true. It’s true that you’re a handful as Rin said, but I’m trying to understand whether I can see the person you were again!”  
“That guy’s basically gone, sorry to disappoint,” Nagisa grumbled bitterly, with his face scrunching into a pained frown.   
“That’s not true. I still see it sometimes and I know you’re still the guy you were in high school. At least in part. I sort of miss that guy,” Sousuke insisted.   
“Tough shit, you’ll have to realize things change and _we_ change and you can’t demand me to be the happy-go-lucky guy I was six years ago!” Nagisa exclaimed, and took a deep breath. “Maybe you liked that guy, and who wouldn’t? But you don’t like _me_.”  
Sousuke passed his fingers through his own hair, with an even deeper sigh.   
“Maybe you just got used to this, but I see the disconnect and I just…”  
“You ‘see yourself in me’, don’t you? You were grumpy and sad in high school. But I’m not you and the reasons why I’m angry are not yours,” Nagisa cut him off, before pulling Olivia’s leash to make him walk on. “If you want us to be friends then you should stop wanting me to be who _you_ want me to be.”  
Sousuke looked at him with surprise on his face, and then nibbled down on his lower lip, walking along silently despite Nagisa’s attempts at walking alone.  
“Nagisa, I’m sorry,” he eventually muttered. “It’s not my place to say that.”  
The other breathed deeply again, and then stopped Olivia once more to nuzzle his head into Sousuke’s shoulder and chest gradually as the other hugged him.   
“I’ve just gotten used to being alone, that’s what I know now. Anything else scares me,” Nagisa confessed then, finding despite himself some comfort against Sousuke’s body. He let go of the leash, and wrapped is smaller arms around the taller’s build, closing his eyes. For a moment, he seemed to hear a faster heartbeat, and sensed some kind of buzz in his stomach. But it was pleasant, and made him want more. “I’ve dealt with the fact that things are like this now, there’s no way to make them any better, and I shouldn’t wish to do what everybody else does. So it’s okay like this. I don’t want to make plans for other situations.”  
“Is the world that scary to you?” Sousuke asked, rubbing his back.   
“It’s incredibly scary. I can handle Iwatobi, but the rest… it’s so, so big.” Nagisa muttered, his voice going lower and crackling.   
“Wouldn’t you want to move to Tokyo?”   
“No,” Nagisa replied right away, with his whole body stiffening and his fingers tightened into Sousuke’s sweatshirt.   
“Okay, it was just a question,” Sousuke said right away, and pressed his lips together.   
“It’s not about you, it’s just… if I had to move elsewhere, I’d have to get used to all of it all over again, to the feel of it, the streets, the objects, new routes, and… it’d be too much. At least right now,” Nagisa continued, raising his head. “I’m sorry. I mean… this is why I didn’t want to have much to do with you. I don’t want you to give up on Tokyo, much less if it’s even remotely because of me.”  
The conversation Sousuke had had with Rin came back to him, and he kept silent for a few seconds.   
“I don’t want you to be alone either, though,” he replied, uncharacteristically blushing a little. Luckily, Nagisa couldn’t see it. But he swallowed, burying his forehead into Sousuke’s chest with a few moments of silence.   
“I’m not. There’s my sister and Olivia,” Nagisa eventually replied, taking a small step back and grinning. “Besides, there are a few people around here that keep me company a lot, so don’t worry!”  
Sousuke couldn’t help it though, with an arm wrapping around Nagisa’s shoulders. He didn’t remember getting close to someone else this relatively fast and being so entranced by someone else, since Rin.   
“Worrying is sort of my thing,” he grumbled, to which Nagisa replied with a low laughter.   
“I thought your thing was looking cool while getting lost,” he snarked, and he did not see Sousuke’s face but he laughed again anyway.  
“Wow, will you guys ever stop teasing me about it?”  
“I don’t think so. It’s too much fun!”  
“Glad to be your laughingstock, Nagisa.”  
But he smiled despite himself at the sight of the grin plastered on Nagisa’s face which felt so genuine, again. At least the awkward moment had passed. 

Two weeks later, the garage owner called Sousuke, announcing to him that his assistant had come back from her pregnancy leave, so he did not need Sousuke’s help anymore. That news didn’t really take him by surprise, but he found himself cramming all of his stuff back in his bag, and in passing he also sent Nagisa a text.   
~ “Hey, Ono doesn’t need me anymore, I’ll be back to Tokyo tomorrow at 2pm.”  
As expected, it didn’t take long to receive a reply. It just was a lot shorter than he expected…   
~ “Ok.”  
~ “Do you want us to hang out before then?”   
He rapped his finger on his chin, waiting for an answer with an impatience that really did not suit him.   
~ “I’ll see you at the train station.”  
Sousuke blinked lightly with a disappointed sigh, but then eventually resumed packing his things, and checking he got paid something for the work he had done at the garage. To be entirely fair, he felt he would miss fixing things he could understand the mechanics of. Other things were not as logical and easy, other things came way too hard for him, and yet he did not think about giving them up. After all, he had barely ever given up on something or someone he cared about. And at that point he just could not deny that he did care for Nagisa, despite the fact that they had been knowing each other in a real way for such a short time and he suspected Nagisa still hid so much from him. That he’d only allowed Sousuke to barely scrape the surface and was closing off again. Which felt like a step backwards.

However, the next day when Sousuke was validating his ticket under a warm, shining sun, Nagisa’s voice came at him clear and alive, as if he was arriving, not departing.   
“Sou-chan!”  
He saw Nagisa trot steadily and wave from the platform, holding Olivia’s leash in one hand and the other hand being tied with Nanako’s who was guiding him even though she was barely keeping up with his haste. He looked melancholic, but trying to smile the disappointment off as Sousuke walked closer, with his trolley rumbling behind him.  
“Hi, Nagisa. Hello… Nanako-san, right?” Sousuke asked, stretching a hand which she grabbed without thinking twice and shook rather vigorously.   
“Sou-chan! You’re as handsome as Nagisacchi says!” She trilled, and giggled at Nagisa who blushed violently and crouched petting Olivia with his eyes stubbornly turning down, a low, embarrassed grumble on his lips.   
“Well, thanks,” Sousuke replied with a polite but honest smile, and then cleared his throat in awkwardness, staring at Nagisa. “I hope it wasn’t a problem to come here… I just wanted to say bye,” he added, softly blushing in embarrassment. Nagisa raised his head a little, before straightening back up again, displaying a shy smile and burning cheeks as he nodded uncertain of what he should say after all.   
“It wasn’t a problem! It’s good for him to go out,” Nanako objected for him, ruffling his hair, but the other pulled away with a deep sigh.   
“You’re saying it like I never went out,” he protested, before tilting his chin so that his pupils were emptily fixated on Sousuke’s lips but then soon began wandering vague and slow around, like his gaze was trying to escape Sousuke’s even though such a chase would be useless. “Anyway… I hope you’ll be alright,” he continued with the corners of his mouth lifting in a big smile, which however only seemed to be a muscular exercise for his face.   
“You too. Take care,” Sousuke replied, and for a moment his chest constricted, his brows wrinkled and his lips tightened pressing together as he struggled with something, but then his arms relaxed, running back to his trolley’s handle.   
“Will you come back and visit?” Nagisa squeaked then, his expression and voice light, casual, but a tenseness was there, barely perceptible. Nanako looked at him, registering the situation while she quickly pieced it together and held her breath silently. It really was not hard to figure things out, after all.   
“Next time you should come have dinner with us!” She intervened though, with her whole face lighting up in a wide, sincere grin. She really did not seem half bad, Sousuke considered as he nodded tentatively.  
“I’ll… Okay, I’ll take you up on that. I’m definitely heading back at some point, I don’t know when though,” he replied vague, with his eyes shifting between the siblings, and the faint sensation that Nanako knew what was going on better than them. “I’ll bring you back something when I do,” he added as a promise, which seemed to warm Nagisa’s expression up, even just a little. That in turn reflected back on Sousuke’s face, who only then realized he was wearing a bit of a stressed out expression and that his knuckles were tense around the trolley’s handle.   
“Something cute?” Nagisa suggested, finally relaxing slightly, while Olivia began pulling to inspect the station.  
“Um, sure…” Sousuke hummed insecure, with a blink of his eyes and a panicked look in Nanako’s direction. What did ‘cute’ even mean? What was Nagisa’s idea of ‘cute’? Something silly? Something pink? Something soft and nice to hug? None of that seemed to appeal to him even though it paired perfectly with the idea he’d had of Nagisa. Cute was a perfect descriptor for him, even though he had changed with the passing time, and he found himself repeating it with a faint background voice while observing the way Nagisa’s blond hair moved ever so gently in the last feeble fresh breeze which announced the arrival of summer.   
Nanako rolled her eyes and sighed as she looked at them, her epiphany having already worn off. She knew Nagisa was attracted to men, she had known it since Rei, and despite an initial shock for it now she did sense some frustration at seeing these two grown up men being unable to state things frankly. But despite the impatience she gave Sousuke a coy smile, and a gentle squeeze to Nagisa’s hand.   
Sousuke happened to peek at the digital clock on top of their heads after a few seconds, realizing his train was due in a couple of minutes, and he cleared his throat nodding quick.   
“Anyway, the train is going to leave. I’ll see you guys sometime, okay?” He announced in a louder tone and with a bit of an embarrassed smirk. Nagisa’s face raised with a rush of anxiety then, but he quickly recovered and nodded, batting his eyelids and taking a deeper breath while attempting to plaster on the most casual smile he could muster.   
“Sure! I’ll…” He began, but then shook his head and beamed at the same time as he clenched his fists. “Uh, have a good trip back home!” He trilled in correcting himself, before taking a step back as if a wall was being raised again between them. Nanako’s lips twitched in disappointment but she said nothing while she grabbed Olivia’s leash and finally indulged him in his continuous attempts to explore the platform and sniff around so that Nagisa and Sousuke were alone.   
“Seriously, take care of yourself. Okay?” Sousuke said, and his eyes flicked to Nagisa’s lips a couple of times.   
“Alright,” Nagisa retorted scratching his nape. “And… I hope you’ll come back soon, Sou-chan,” he added in a lower tone. “I liked spending time with you.”  
“Me too,” Sousuke admitted, which was probably one of the few honest things he found himself saying all day.   
An uncomfortable silence settled between them as Sousuke glanced around and Nagisa swayed on his feet, until Nanako came back panting and giggled, “ah, sorry, Olivia was gonna jump on the track…”  
“Oh… wow, be careful,” Sousuke replied, somehow happy since that awkward lack of communication had been interrupted. Nagisa smiled again when Olivia went on his hind legs and pet him, only turning his head towards Sousuke when an announcement of his train being about to leave resounded over them.   
“Well, that’s my cue,” Sousuke concluded, politely bowing his head a little at Nanako and then allowing himself to brush a hand along Nagisa’s arm. “I’ll see you.”  
Nagisa was tempted to ask if that was a promise or just an expression, but bit it back and tensed up once more instead, with a single nod and his lip sliding through his teeth for a second.  
“Yeah… _see_ you,” he joked with a smirk to camouflage a stinging sense of disappointment, before tangling his arm with Nanako’s again. Sousuke only looked back at them for a moment with a small embarrassed smile, before walking through the train’s doors.

“You’re an idiot,” Nanako sighed later, while driving Nagisa and Olivia back home.   
“I can do nothing about it, Nanako…” Nagisa replied with an impatient tone, since they had discussed Sousuke plenty before.  
“Alright, but a hug? Nothing?” She insisted, stopping at a red light. “I mean, it was physically painful to watch you two.”  
Nagisa shook his head with a long sigh, and closed his eyes silently wishing she would stop. 

—

“I’d appreciate it if you stopped looking at me that way” Sousuke muttered glancing across the table at Rin’s figure, currently leaning forward while sucking some orange juice from a straw, with his eyebrow raised and quite the grimace on his lips.   
“Come on, Sousuke, when will you stop isolating yourself? At least try and pretend to be sociable,” Rin replied, in a clearly frustrated tone.  
“The same way you were sociable in your second year?” Sousuke shot back, sipping his small bottle of beer and looking around at the quiet alley they had decided to meet at. Rin was a bit obsessive with avoiding to attract attention in public, even though most of the population did not care that much for professional swimmers.  
“Ouch, touché,” Rin replied, with a grin. “I’m just saying we’ve been sitting here for ten minutes and you haven’t said a thing.”  
“Well, I didn’t decide to hang out with you, actually, _you_ dragged me out.” Sousuke grunted, looking down with a sigh.   
Rin tilted his head, observing him with his eyebrows creasing, before he sighed a bit impatiently.   
“If it makes you so miserable you should go back and be with him, you know,” he said, and rolled his eyes.  
“What? I’m not miserable!” Sousuke replied, with a frown. “I’m just tired from working out is all.”  
“You are so full of shit, Sousuke,” Rin muttered, playing with a strand of his hair and then leaning back against the chair with a puff.   
“What should I tell you? I’ve tried reaching out to him, but it’s obvious he doesn’t want anybody to be with him, I’m just respecting that.”  
“Nagisa,” Rin began, looking at his glass of juice with a sort of melancholic gaze. “Nagisa was always trying to live up to us, in elementary school. He was always acting like we’d leave him behind if he didn’t move fast enough. I was a bit too proud to admit it, but actually once I got scared of him while swimming. He definitely had potential and, um, I guess I was a bit too proud to admit that. And then in the end it’s because of him that I finally managed moving past what was going on with me in high school, because he convinced Haru to swim again. I never thanked him for that,” he admitted, with a little smile.   
“And what do I have to do with that?” Sousuke replied, even though he was actually interested in all of that. It was his time now to lean forward.  
“Well, I think he carried that around. So you’re going to have to hammer it in his head that he’s got nothing less than any of us,” Rin replied, scratching his head. “Admittedly none of us ever actually let him know he was fine just as he was, and probably nobody told him that in clear words. I think he always just looked at his situation as if he was trying to catch up on us when really he should have been focusing on accomplishing what he wanted to.”  
“That… makes sense,” Sousuke hummed, and then rubbed his eyes. “I think he sees blindness as this thing that will push everybody away from him, so he pushed me away before we could become… something,” he added, pursing his lips in a grimace.   
“So what I’m wondering is, how do you feel about this?” Rin asked then, taking another long sip and finished his drink, then looked down at the empty glass before shooting Sousuke a sharp look.   
Sousuke frowned, pressing his lips together in uncertainty. It was true he had a lot of things to tell Nagisa, and that he had been on the verge of saying them, it was true that since he had come back to Tokyo his mood had gone back to a grey, intolerable one, but he had blamed that on the city’s rhythm and the fact that his almost vacation was over.   
“I guess I liked having someone to hang out with in Iwatobi,” he replied, evasively.  
“Just hang out?” Rin pressed on, leaning closer, and Sousuke glowered at him.  
“You’re my ex,” he stated, with awkwardness crawling up his spine. It really was quite weird to discuss his romantic headaches with the biggest one he’d ever had before. “Are you really rooting for me to be with someone else? You should be telling me that it wasn’t meant to be, that he’s not good enough for me or some shit… I don’t know what exes say.”  
Rin began laughing, and shook his head.  
“I’m married, Sousuke. And what does that even mean? I mean, yes, I do miss how it was when I was with you sometimes, but it’s okay like this. I love my life right now, I’m a swimming champion and I get great sex,” he said grinning. “And you’re trying to evade my question. The real thing you should be thinking about is: how do you feel about Nagisa?” He added then, in a more serious tone.   
If Rin had asked him to calculate the speed of a meteor without a calculator, it would have been easier to answer.   
“I’ve never seen you grow fond of someone as quick as you did with him,” Rin continued, throwing his ex a casual look. “It’s like, one second you met and the next second you were shielding him and spoiling him. But in the end, I did tell you he’d get under your skin,” he concluded with a victorious smile. “I was right. Is that why you don’t want to admit you like him? Because it’d mean I’m right? You fucker!” he joked, slamming a fist on the table.  
“Oi, don’t yell,” Sousuke hushed him, looking around and then giving up with an exhausted expression. “Whatever. He’s a cool guy, he’s bizarre. Despite that gloomy thing he’s got going… he’s cool,” he listed off. _I like it when he smiles_. Well, that was random. “The point is, I’ve had sex with him once and then he, like, unleashed so much bullshit on me, and honestly… I would have dated him if…” he trailed off, knowing just how bad and awful _that_ would have sounded.   
“So you like him, but you don’t like him when he’s blind,” Rin summed up, with a look that expressed judgment.   
“No, it’s not that he’s blind, it’s the whole… sadness and attitude he’s got going on because of it!” Sousuke protested, and crossed his arms. “I’m not a psychologist, I’m not… good at this stuff,” he added, defensively. “I mean, I’ve got enough shit going on with myself, okay?”  
Rin hummed, looking away as he bit his lips, but then grinned.  
“But you miss him,” he replied quietly, and glanced at Sousuke knowingly. “And you’re scared of facing something you’ve never had to deal with before.”  
Sousuke stared at him for a few seconds, and then grabbed his bottle of beer, looked at it angrily, then chugged it all down. He took a deep breath with something clenching in his chest, then leaned the entire top half of his body on the small bar table.  
“Fuck,” he growled in agreement, while Rin, amused and with affection rising up to make his eyes brighten, began stroking his hair gently.   
“So what are you going to do?” He asked in a quiet voice, more relaxed from having been successful in having moved things forward a little.  
“I have no idea,” Sousuke mumbled against his arm, and closed his eyes in relaxation.  
“I do,” Rin replied, as the idea that had just crossed his mind made a sharp grin brighten his features.   
Sousuke looked up at him, raising an eyebrow to throw a confused gaze his way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, this came late! The thing is, I've been writing flashfics and one-shots almost every day this last month and a half, because I'm participating in time-consuming challenges, like since the beginning of 2016 I wrote 66k words in flashfics and one-shots only... and I was given 3 days of rest between one challenge and the other, so I picked this fic back up during this little pause XD Anyway, if all goes well, I might be able to finish in another 8k words, so it's almost done, but then again as GRRM would say I'm a Gardener when it comes to writing so who knows how long the story is actually going to be in the end? I don't know when I'll post next, but since this month I'm way past 25k words, the ending might come for March or April (even though I have to count for the unknown factor of finding a job and when that'll actually happen and how much time I will actually spend writing). So far, anyway, I hope someone liked it. I treasure each and every kudo you give me, and thank you for reading if you got this far! :)


	8. Chapter 8

Summer finally came: slow, unbearably hot, with air so humid and static that Nagisa found himself panting and going back home even before getting halfway through the usual walk around the neighborhood. Olivia also seemed to suffer a lot from an unusually humid summer, as he was always lying on the fresh tiled floor and refusing to move unless he’d get forced to.   
“Nagisacchi, why don’t we go swimming at the pool?” Nanako asked him one day, while the two of them were sitting in the living room, with the tv on at a low volume set on the news telling the nation that it was indeed being hot during the hot season, just loud enough to provide a boring and uninteresting, but comforting, background noise.  
“Why not at the beach?” Nagisa puffed, lounging on the sofa hugging an ice cold water bottle and sometimes pressing it on his face to find relief from the June temperature.  
“Well, it’s easier for me to keep an eye on you at the pool…” Nanako replied, throwing him a slightly tense glance.  
“I can take care of myself,” Nagisa affirmed, rolling his eyes and then shaking his head. “You don’t need to worry about me.”  
“ _Not worry about you_ … gee, I should’ve heard that like five years ago,” Nanako retorted, throwing him a glare that she knew he wouldn’t catch anyway, which was why she filled her tone with sarcasm. Nagisa sighed, and after a few seconds of silence he shrugged.  
“Well, I guess it’d be nice to go at Iwatobi SC and hear from coach Goro again and visit the place. It’s been a while…” Nagisa finally conceded, with a sigh.  
“Wasn’t it like last year?”  
“I said I’m going, don’t push it,” Nagisa replied, hugging his bottle tighter. Nanako looked at him with a bit of annoyance, but then she nodded to herself, turning the television off. She really was not in the mood to start having yet another argument about the tone Nagisa had had around people and around her the most, since they lived together, and ignored it entirely.  
“Good. I’m getting bored, let’s go,” she hummed, grabbing his hand and then dragging him out of home, her brother half-assing some protests and Olivia following curious.

“Nagisa-kun! Hey, it’s been a while!” Coach Sasabe roared jovial as soon as he saw the two arrive with their arms laced together, fanning themselves for the high temperature, and gave some loud, aggressive instructions to the scared third grade children he was teaching to before walking to Nagisa and Nanako. He ruffled Nagisa’s hair with a jolly laughter, and Nanako smiled at him while the younger complained that his hair was sweaty.  
“You haven’t lost your edge, eh, Coach Sasabe?” She laughed, and he grinned back, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at the lane filled with swimming kids.  
“Them kids pull it out of me, you know? It’s like the more they grow the harder it’s to focus for them and the harder my job’s for me,” he explained, with a loud sigh, scratching his head. “Well, what brings you here? Having nostalgia of the water?” He asked, looking at Nagisa who focused on the splashing noises and the intense smell of chlorine. Somehow, that was the thing he seemed to miss the most about swimming.  
“Yeah, a bit. But I don’t like swimming much anymore,” he replied, curtly, turning his face away towards the water’s sounds and children’s chatter more in a sign of self-defense than to sense them somehow.  
“Yeah, I can imagine that… your eyes, they didn’t get better I take it?” Sasabe asked as his eyebrows knitted in a frown, a worried one.  
Nagisa shook his head in response, but sighed with a bitter expression, while Nanako looked at the kids swim for a couple of seconds, not looking like she wanted to talk about that topic.  
“Did you see any of the other boys… you know, his friends?” She then asked the coach, eyeing Nagisa who simply frowned lightly at that mention.  
Sasabe clicked his tongue and hummed, pursing his lip.  
“I think I saw Makoto and Haruka last year, but other than that no, I didn’t see nobody else. I saw you hang around that tall guy from Samezuka though lately, but I don’t see him around anymore, something happen to him?” He finally replied, looking at both of them.  
Nagisa nibbled on the inside of his lip, and then shrugged with his gaze once again escaping.  
“Back to Tokyo. He was here to help out a friend for a while,” he muttered shortly, and gave the pool a small grimace. “I know that he’s still in the swimming scene, but he can’t do much actual swimming.”  
“Well, yeah, I bet. Didn’t he do something about that shoulder?” Sasabe asked, while Nanako followed the kids’ swimming with interest and smiled fondly looking at them. It made her wish she’d been there when Nagisa was in the team, at least because back then he used to smile so much more.  
“Mh. Apparently there’s not much to do at this point, it’ll just keep hurting as long as he lives, at least that’s what he said,” Nagisa responded, and then pressed his lips together. _Kind of like me_ , he thought.  
“Well, does he have a job?” Goro asked, rubbing his chin. “Because I could definitely use someone to help me out with coaching and Rin was telling me he’s been helping some teammates, Yamazaki, and they actually got a lot better with their technique,” he added. “You know, we went from barely getting any subscriptions to getting too many!” He laughed. “Must be because Rin and Haruka are doing so good. Bet Samezuka blew up with subscriptions as well.”  
Nagisa blinked, and his eyes then went wide. He turned his head in Sasabe’s voice’s direction, and even though he could not see his expression his heart started pounding excitedly, his mind forgetting all the trouble he had had with Sousuke.  
“We’ll look for someone to help you!” Nanako said enthusiastically, and then looked down at Nagisa thinking she could probably guess what was on his mind at the moment. She placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently; his reaction was a simple puff and a frown.  
“Yeah. Maybe Mako-chan could do it since he _actually_ studied to do that,” he added, stubborn, making Nanako roll her eyes.  
"Doesn't Tachibana-kun already have a job?" She asked low.  
"... Yeah."

After chatting a little bit more, coach Sasabe was called out by the kids in the pool, and Nanako helped Nagisa exit after exchanging a few more cordial pleasantries.   
“Why are you so bent over and backwards on…?” She began, but Nagisa cut her off nervously, as he began sweating again. Being under such a hot sun without any breeze to relieve the temperature, his temper was even shorter than it had been lately.  
“What should I do? Call Sou-chan and be like, ‘hey, come back here right a couple months after you left, and live here in Iwatobi for me, since maybe I found you a job’?” He muttered, sarcastic, and he looked away as they walked to the train station.  
“Why don’t you go to Tokyo and fix it?” She tried again, lacing their arms together tighter and provoking a puff in him. Walking so close in summer was really not pleasant at all. And the hotness of the season had really started to wear him down, anyway.  
“Nanako, leave it,” he retorted, then bit on his lip with frustration.  
“No, I’m not gonna leave it. You’re miserable, Nagisacchi. You’ve been a wreck ever since Rei-kun left,” she insisted, but kept on walking and looking ahead to the sidewalk. “It’s been years, and yet you’re still stuck at home, and blindness is not an excuse to stay unhappy. Do you know how many blind people manage leading a normal life?”  
Nagisa clenched his teeth tight, with his guts burning now and anxiety making his blood pump harder, as if he’d needed to get even more heated up.  
“I’ve been blind for what, four years? I guess those people you speak of have been blind for decades, no wonder they’re good at moving around and doing stuff. I don’t wanna go and risk to get hurt walking into stuff. I just got used to moving around in Iwatobi, so leave me alone until I’m ready to move on!” He exclaimed, almost stopping his walk.  
She listened, and pursed her lips keeping silent for a few seconds, before lowering her voice.  
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Nagisacchi,” she replied with a nod, and kissed the side of his head despite his low complaint that it looked like they were dating. Even though everybody knew them, of course. “I’m just worried for you, and… in all honesty, I’m tired of seeing you so sad all the time when just a few years ago you were always smiling.”  
“Yeah, that’s-“  
“I know. I know, things have been rough. Just hoping you’ll be able to be happy again, I guess that’s what I’m saying, you know?” She interrupted him, softening her voice. “I’m just sad to see my little brother sad.”  
Nagisa found that was understandable, and he sighed finally relaxing.  
“I miss smiling all the time as well. I suppose I’m angry because if I hadn’t… if _that_ hadn’t happened, my life would be going forward and I wouldn’t be like this,” he voiced honest, and grimaced with disappointment.  
“I know. I guess I insisted with you following Sou-chan because I saw you much more relaxed when he was here, and… I saw you happier. Isn’t it? At least for a few days it looked like you’d gotten back, you know?” She replied. “I love you, so it made me really happy to see you like that. You never told me anything about it, but I assumed you have feelings for him.”  
Nagisa listened to the street’s sounds, people’s indistinct chatter and complaints about how hot it was today, dogs’ bells as they were being walked around, the wind’s voice. The scent of summer was all around them, and for a split moment he found himself being glad that he was having this conversation, even though it was uncomfortable and Nanako was telling him things he already knew but did not want to hear.  
“I did. I mean, I do. I miss hanging out with him,” he finally admitted in a low voice, and only realized how melancholic he sounded right after speaking.  
Nanako glanced sideways at him, and then nudged his side with her elbow, playfully, but always keeping their arms firmly linked together for guidance.  
“Call him. Ask him how it’s going. Patch it up,” she suggested. “You don’t have to fix it now, but at least show him you care, no?”  
Nagisa took a deep breath, keeping silent. But he finally nodded, a bit too fast to even pretend he was calm.

Sousuke’s summer wasn’t much different, at least in terms of temperature and dilemmas. In the end, he’d settled for a fixed-term barman job in Roppongi which forced him to half an hour of commuting every morning but was better than nothing, even though it did end up straining his shoulder more than necessary; at the end of the day he’d always need some complete immobility, ice packs and some massaging. It was exhausting and painful, but at least he had a funny and quirky roommate, Izanagi, who worked the shift after his own - and found the job - and who would sometimes offer to give him a massage or bring him ice packs. His looks were completely different from Nagisa’s - since he was at least twenty centimeters taller, a lot wider, had red hair, green eyes, a darker complexion and a darker fashion style. Still, sometimes Sousuke found himself looking at that young man’s smile and carefree attitude, which would make him wonder whether that was how Nagisa would more or less sound had his life gone another direction. And he found himself thinking maybe he _did_ have a type: funny, goofy, honest and sweet, just like Rin had been, more or less, just like Nagisa was.  
“A can of Pokka for your thoughts, Sou-chin” Izanagi proposed that day, plopping down on the sofa next to him and suckling on a straw. Sousuke had been sitting there for at least five minutes, staring with a frown at his phone, taking his eyes off it and looking at the television screen, then back down while typing and deleting. “Who’s Nagisa? Your girlfriend? Do you even have a girlfriend? Is she your lover? Ooooh, bet you’re secretly married and have a side story, isn’t it?” Izanagi asked then, peeking and earning a hit from Sousuke’s elbow on his side. He even managed to spy on the message that had started that pathetic, indecisive ritual:  
~ “ _I miss you_ ”.  
“Mind your own damn business, dude,” Sousuke replied, pushing him away and going back to his very serious and productive task of finding a way to reply that wouldn’t sound too nostalgic nor too cold. A neutral one. “And don’t call me -chin. Girls call each other that.”  
“You’ve been writing and deleting that stuff for ages, you must _really_ like her,” Izanagi continued, ignoring him and leaning his head on Sousuke’s shoulder. Had he had a tail, he would have wagged, though. “And you _are_ being a girl, actually.”  
“And you’re being annoying,” Sousuke grumbled, turning around to hide his phone’s screen.  
“Sou-chin, Sou-tan, Sou-rin… Sou-chan is fine though, isn’t it?” Izanagi mumbled, tapping his chin at every cutesy honorific he was thinking of, obviously ignoring him. Sousuke glared at him, and puffed air out at the last one.  
“Oi, Iza, don’t you have stuff to do? Like, you know, going to do your shift?” Sousuke snapped, at last, shutting his phone down. “I’m not in the mood for you today.”  
“Jeez, how grumpy,” Izanagi complained, and then scoffed. “Well, I wouldn’t have let you get my drink anyway: it’s empty,” he added with a petty tone, throwing the can in Sousuke’s direction. The latter let it bounce on his head before sighing and then lying back down with his initial doubts running through his head again. The moment the door closed, he finally sighed letting himself think calmly.  
_What could he possibly reply_? Eventually, he just dropped the phone, though, deciding he would cook some dinner instead.

A few days later, his message was still there, unanswered. To be fair he’d forgotten about it entirely, being too busy with work, playing along with whatever Izanagi announced he wanted to do, and keeping up with Rin’s career which somehow was still a sort of obsession with him. He only reminded himself he had to reply because of a string of messages from Rin, and his ringtone went off for a few times forcing him to pay attention to it. Exactly like Nagisa would do, even though the last time he’d been brief in his contact.   
~ “ _So you up for it next month_?” Rin had asked, and Sousuke was going to reply when Izanagi plopped next to him on the sofa.  
“Whatcha gonna do next month?” He asked, leaning his head on Sousuke’s shoulder.  
“Christ, Iza, mind your own shit,” Sousuke muttered, turning his phone away. It really irritated him how that guy would always shove his nose right into other people’s business.  
~ “ _Yeah, I’ll be there_ ”, he replied then, and shoved his phone in his tracksuit’s pocket, looking at his roommate.  
“Whatcha gonna do? Are you going on holiday? Did you ask the boss?” Izanagi asked, ignoring him.  
“Yeah, I did. Says it’s okay,” Sousuke muttered, and then looked at him. “Hey, wanna go to the mall with me?”  
“Eh?! Sou-chin asked me out on a date?!” Izanagi asked smooth and slow, leaning closer. “The mall’s not exactly a nice place to be cozy together, but we’ll make do.”  
“You wish. No, I need to buy something,” Sousuke retorted, rolling his eyes and scoffing at Izanagi’s fake-disappointed look.  
“Aw… No, I cannot, you hurt me too much,” the other replied dramatically, and then stood up scratching his ass.  
“Don’t fart,” Sousuke warned, and received a giggle, but had to kick Izanagi away right after, while fanning the air around him.  
“You’re never gonna find a girlfriend if you’re gonna fart and burp like that,” Sousuke complained, and shook his head at the clear laughter he received in response.  
“At least _I_ get pussy,” Izanagi replied, which made his jaws clench. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t gotten any dick for at least two weeks, am I wrong?”  
Sousuke puffed air out, looking down between his legs. Sadly, Izanagi was not wrong, despite how creepy and inappropriate it was that he was somehow keeping tabs on Sousuke’s sexual life. Yes, with his build and looks it was not hard to find company for a night and go to a love hotel for a casual one night stand, but lately work and rehabilitation had taken all his time, not to mention his own tendency to shut himself in with the excuse that he was tired had put a nail on his social life lately.  
That didn’t mean his groin was any less frustrated at the lack of release, and masturbating was becoming too boring even in the middle of chaotic life in the city which was by definition never monotonous.  
Izanagi looked at him, and hummed quietly.  
“Come on, Sou-chin, I’m taking you to the movies,” he continued, whipping his phone out to control the screening times. “So you can tell uncle Iza what’s bothering you.”  
“Nothing’s bothering me,” Sousuke growled, hunching his shoulders.  
“Yeah, and I’m the Fairy Godmother,” Izanagi replied, and sighed. “You know, it’s really not attractive when a man pretends to be okay.”  
“You sound like my mother,” Sousuke grumbled, and then pushed Izanagi out of the way to get a drink.  
“Well, someone’s gotta do the dirty work around here, so come on, Sou-chin, tell me everything. Is it your ex?”  
Sousuke looked at him.  
“No, it’s not Rin. We’re cool.”  
“So… is it that guy you almost dated in Tottori?” Izanagi guessed, and came closer with a smirk appearing on his lips when Sousuke’s own pressed in a thin line.  
“Okay, so let’s see. You guys broke up…”  
“We were never really together to begin with.”  
“You broke up,” Izanagi continued, placing a hand on his mouth. “And your heart was shattered.”  
“Oi, I’m not like that.”  
“And you barely talked to each other all along. And you obviously miss him, ‘cause I caught you looking at pictures of him on your phone.”  
“Iza, what the fuck? You spying on me?”  
“I’m just a concerned roomie, doing what concerned roomies should be doing!” Izanagi defended himself, raising both his hands.  
“Listen, asshole, stop prying into my shit, okay?”  
“I’m just trying to make you see just how full of shit you are, coming here and poisoning my life as well,” Izanagi hissed then, lowering his voice and getting closer to Sousuke. “I don’t like coming home and finding the atmosphere of a fucking funeral. Besides,” he added, going back to his usual carefree voice, “it turns girls off when I bring them here and this is where I keep toys. I’m telling you to go and kiss the guy and fuck his brains out or whatever it is you want to do, for my sake as well.”  
“You’re being dramatic… does it really bother you that much?”  
“Well, I mean, I’m still fabulous and sexy no matter how pathetic _you_ look, but let’s say your sadness rubbed off on me as well. A teeny bit,” the other replied, scavenging through the fridge now. “You know, the stoic and broody tragic hero is not _in_ anymore and it’s not as sexy as it seems. Just fucking go there and tell him: ‘hey, I love you desperately, please let’s move to Shibuya and share the rest of our lives together’ so you’ll stop being such a pain in my ass. It’s literally that easy.”  
“He’s fucking _blind_ , Iza, and he’s the first to let it affect him,” Sousuke snapped, pulling his short hair back in frustration.  
“Well, maybe it’s not as relevant as you think it is. Maybe he’s scared of change,” Izanagi mused out loud, whipping his head back for a moment and looking ahead of himself again, to the leftover piece of cake that had been rotting there for days. “I remember Rin telling me you wouldn’t let anything stop you from pursuing him, not even your own body’s limits, so why should it be any different with this dude?”  
“When did you guys talk about this stuff?” Sousuke asked, frowning.  
“Oh, we went out a couple times once with the gang you’d be in if you came out of the house.”  
“You make it sound like I’m a shut-in.”  
“Well, you don’t go out much either, do you?” Izanagi snarked back, throwing the cake into the trash. “Seriously, go back to Tottori.”  
“Iwatobi.”  
“Whatever. Just go and stop making me worry.”  
“Fuck, Iza, you _literally_ sound like my mom.”  
“Someone’s gotta mom this big baby,” Izanagi replied, sauntering out. “I’m gonna go out with my smoking hot GF, you can choose whether to spend the rest of the summer feeling sorry for yourself or do something about it,” he added, before waving his hand and leaving the apartment.  
Sousuke just sat there, frowning at the thought that both his ex-slash-best-friend and his roommate had told him the same exact thing. And then he opened the pictures app, looking with a dumb and unaware smile at the selfie Nagisa had once insisted they should take together on the beach, ‘before Sou-chan leaves’.  
Yeah, he really needed to do something about this, he thought once he realize he had a nostalgic grin plastered on his face and some sort of warmth was stirring in his guts and chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lateness and the short length of this, but for various reasons I had to write it in bits and pieces and push the writing for later times and only now managed to give it some sort of a wrapping up. But I'm actually quite fond of this chapter, so I hope that despite it being short it'll still be decent XD  
> Also, this chapter I decided to introduce an OC, I don't know how relevant he'll be but I'm already a bit fond of him :'3  
> also, COME THE FUCK ON GUYS STOP BEING SO TSUN AND PREDICTABLE  
> OH MY GOD I'M FRUSTRATED AT MY OWN FIC *smushes them together*


	9. Chapter 9

August began with the rain. It was light, too thin, and people walking outside needed to squint in order to not be bothered by the drops feeling like they were trying to get specifically in their eyes. Wetness in the air mixed up with the droplets sticking against pedestrians’ clothes from the inside. Nagisa spent part of the morning as usual anyway, having a rich and sugary breakfast; he listened to a bit of television just to have some sounds to wake him up and give him a comforting sense of familiarity, then he grabbed his leash while Olivia speeded around him excitedly as if it was the first time he’d been walked out, like he did every day. But this morning, Nanako appeared on Nagisa’s side sliding her arm around his, instead of starting to clean around the house and go to work. Maybe she’d gotten a day off…  
“I’m coming too!” She trilled with a cheerful tone, and beamed at him, even popping a kiss on his cheek.  
His eyes fluttered open and closes a few times with surprise, as he shook his head in the dim morning light dissipated by the clouds too.  
“You never come with me,” he noted, but smiled despite it.  
“Well, I just felt like staying with you some extra time today. It’s your birthday, is it not?” She replied opening a big umbrella while they both went out, with Olivia trotting along, and the rain came down on them all with a light shower even though they were sheltered by the umbrella.  
“Maybe we shouldn’t go out, actually…” Nagisa hummed, stretching a hand out to feel the water hit the palm of his hand and taking a step back while Olivia turned around to look at him curiously.  
“Oh, no! Come on, this is nothing. Besides, Olivia needs to pee, doesn’t he?” Nanako insisted, tugging him along with a certain haste. Nagisa frowned, but obeyed, walking side by side with her in silence for a few minutes.  
“My shoes and pants are all wet…” He complained then, feeling his Converse trainers and jeans all damped. He held onto her arm, with a cold shiver. “It’s summer, it shouldn’t be this wet!” He then complained, with a pout.  
But his head tilted to the side with an almost peaceful smile, while hurried steps sounded around them and the rain tapped gently on the umbrella’s stretched canopy.  
“Eh, I know, right?” Nanako responded with an absent-minded tone while typing something on her cellphone. “And, well, what about we go grab some ice-cream? My treat,” she added and her voice smiled, nervous as her eyes turned back on him.  
“Huh, your treat? It must really be my birthday,” he joked, with a smirk.  
“Stop being so mean,” she said in protest, but tugged him along anyway and guided him to a quiet and mildly ventilated bar where a few elders and students were relaxing, sipping from small cups and enjoying the sight that rain offered from the premises’ safety, without feeling hot either. She helped him sit, and then took a deep satisfied sigh.  
Nagisa giggled as they both received a cup of coffee and an ice-cream cone.  
“You’re my sister, I’m allowed to be,” he replied eventually, and then pulled his tongue out in her direction.  
She smirked and looked at him for a few quiet seconds during which she allowed herself to look around and take in the relaxed atmosphere, helped by some kind of upbeat ambient music and the bright clean walls with nature paintings in delicate tones and delicate brushstrokes decorating them.  
“So, did you hear from Sou-chan again?” She asked, with a few soft, nervous taps on the plastic table and her nails drawing circles on its surface mirroring the nature of her worries.  
“I sent him a text… he never replied, so I looked like a complete idiot,” he muttered in reply, and took a sip giving the space around them an empty look.  
“Did you try again? Maybe he wanted to reply and was busy but then forgot,” she insisted tilting her own head.  
“I don’t think so,” he said with a grim tone, seemingly paying more attention to the clinking sound of the teaspoon as he stirred his extra-sugary coffee.  
“Do you think he doesn’t like you after all?” She asked leaning closer to him and observing him with an attentive gaze which he felt on him somehow.  
“I don’t know. But I don’t like being the sucker who depends on other people,” he blurted out.  
“I know you don’t, but maybe if you tried a bit harder it doesn’t mean you’d depend on him…” She began, but only received an annoyed puff as something stirred not only in Nagisa’s cup but in his guts as well, as his cheeks darkened with red.  
“I know I’m dead weigh, but I think that’s my choice, no?” He muttered with a dark glare to the table.  
“You’re not- ah, _whatever_ ,” Nanako retorted, and fanned with a hand in dismissal.  
In the end, they spent the better part of the morning out, and Nanako oddly insisted they should eat something out for lunch instead of being home because it was her day out and she wanted to take a walk, breathe in some different air, and Nagisa did not protest to that even though all air felt the same to him and all places were the same. However, she and Olivia led him around town, she looked at the glass showcases of jewelry and clothing shops in the town’s center mall, but eventually they got back home.

When Nagisa stepped in, something hit him. More specifically, a sweet scent hit his nose, making him still on the doorstep. Something felt different about their place now, and all his senses sharpened with alarm and suspicion. He let go of Olivia’s leash, cursing himself for not being able to see and immediately thinking maybe a burglar was in the house - which made his breath quicken, heavier - but while he touched around the walls to orient himself Nanako placed a hand on his shoulder, reassuring him. Besides, Olivia was now trotting around and sniffing the air, then barking, and Nagisa could hear his tail hit the doorframe the same way it did when the dog was positively excited.  
Almost at the same time, a whisper came to his ears from somewhere in the kitchen, and he instantly relaxed with a smile curling his lips.  
“Is this a surprise party?” He guessed, and a roar of laughter and cheers erupted around the table. They were all there, all of his closest friends from high school, the most precious ones. He could recognize their voices, and measure with his hearing the depth of the room from the way all of those sounds mixed and echoed and clashed, but he could not focus on the accuracy of his senses because an arm snaked around his shoulders pulling him closer.  
“Happy birthday, Nagisa,” Rin said in his ear among the sudden chaos, and Nagisa beamed even more intensely while wrapping both his arms around him. The change in his mood was obvious and fast, it came overwhelming down on him. It felt liberating, like having a stuffy nose in winter and not being able to properly breathe, then finally going back to normal with long, satisfying breaths.  
“Rin-Rin!” He squealed aloud, holding him tight and close, with his own heartbeat thrumming in his ears. “Oh my… I missed you!” He exclaimed, and then let go immediately touching Rin’s face to look at him, in a way.  
“Yeah, me too,” Rin replied, and Nagisa could feel Nanako’s smile on his side.  
“We all missed you, you know?” Makoto’s voice intervened, and a second after Nagisa was entirely wrapped into the other’s arms, was pushed against Makoto’s wide, warm chest. Nagisa didn’t remember his body being that huge. Then again, they hadn’t seen one another in too much time, and for a moment his old envy of Makoto’s body resurfaced, but he smiled relieved the moment he realized his friend’s natural scent had never really changed, just like his need to take care of others. He still somehow smelled sweet, but with a gentle and manly hint of perfume now.  
“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you!” Nagisa chirped, and grabbed Makoto’s arm before being almost attacked by Momo who jumped at his neck almost sending him back against the door.  
“Nagisacchi! Hi! Happy birthday! I got a beetle for you!” The younger redhead barked friendly and enthusiastic as usual, then grabbed on Nagisa’s grinning face to look at him better. “You didn’t change at all!”  
“Eh… Well… I don’t know, I think I did,” Nagisa muttered, a bit embarrassed.  
“Nah. Your smile’s the same!” Momo chirped, and then grabbed his hand. “I came with Ai-chan, you haven’t seen Aicchi in a bit, eh?”  
‘Ai-chi’… they must have gotten closer since the end of high school since, before, Aiichirou was only ‘Nitori-senpai’ to him.  
“The last time I _saw_ anybody was before the accident…” Nagisa replied with an amused smirk cutting his face horizontally.  
“Aw, come on, you know what I mean!” Momo protested patting his arm. “Also, how’s it going? With your eyes, I mean. Can’t you see anything at all?”  
Anyone else would have thought it was rude or insensitive to ask that in that way, but Nagisa knew Momo and he knew he meant well, so he simply shrugged.  
“Nope. But I got so good at feeling stuff with my fingers! I didn’t imagine I’d get so many things about objects. And I can read a book in braille in like… two hours,” Nagisa retorted with a chuckle, and hugged Momo again. “I’m so happy you guys are here. Who organized it? I mean, aren’t you guys living a bit scattered around the islands?” He asked, and turned his head towards Rin.  
“Me and your sister did it… we actually happened to have the same idea, you know?” The other replied, with a small laughter in his voice.  
“Happy birthday, Nagisa,” another voice slithered in, and Nagisa immediately gasped turning towards it, and he jumped in that direction without any kind of restraint, smacking against Rei’s chest. He let out a chocked out squeak of surprise and happiness, holding his ex-boyfriend tight with a knot up his throat now.  
“Rei-chan… Rei-chan!” He yelled all excited, so over the moon, now, that, had he had a tail, he would have wagged running in circles. Rei smiled and hugged him back tight, then pressed a little affectionate kiss to the side of Nagisa’s head as discretely as he could.  
“Hello, Nagisa-kun,” Rei replied, slipping back into their usual and intimate sort of tone, and Nagisa could almost physically sense everybody’s eyes on them.  
“This is… so great,” he murmured, let go of Rei and then turned his head as if he could look at his friends’ faces.  
“Hazuki-kun, hey,” Aiichirou’s squeaky voice said in a timid tone which barely sounded like that Nagisa was used to hear, while a happy chatter filled the kitchen up, small talking and catching up on each other as everybody mingled in just right.  
“Ai-chan! You’re here too, right?” He squawked before draping his arms around Nitori’s grown up build as well and sensing him tense up with embarrassment, but then eventually locked his hands behind Nagisa’s back as well.  
“Happy birthday,” Aiichirou wished on him, gently.  
“Thank you! You grew up a lot!” Nagisa commented, a bright beam coming from his wide, happy smile. “Oh, wow, I’m so happy!” Nagisa trilled openly, bouncing a little on his toes with the biggest smile he’d had in quite a long time, and his eyes shining with so much nostalgia and fondness he felt like he was in his first year of high school again, being reunited with Makoto and Haruka after the most confusing time of his life until then. In a way, it was quite similar, since the confusion and loss had turned every taste sour a few years before.  
“Good! That was exactly what we wanted,” Rin responded, with everybody chuckling relieved and smiling at Nagisa’s enthusiasm. Maybe they had truly missed him too, and that thought curled up in his chest like a chubby, purring cat, making his heart pound with life.  
Nagisa turned his head a few times, though, as if he was looking for something.  
Rin seemed to have guessed what Nagisa was looking for - when had he gotten so good at reading him? - because he grabbed his arm and pulled him towards his bedroom, a bit further from the others.  
“What are you doing… Rin-chan?” Nagisa asked, with a confused and a bit alarmed expression.  
“Well, I thought I’d take things in my own hands, for both of you,” Rin replied in a quizzical tone, swinging the door open, then grabbed the key from its hole and slammed the door again, until he finally locked it.

Nagisa’s eyes went wide and his breath caught up in his throat with surprise at all that - what was it all about? - and touched around the room until he detected more breaths very close to him, among the sound of all those muffled voices in the rest of his house, including Rin who seemed to be explaining everything to everyone else. His fingers met bigger ones, and then the hand attached to them, with a loud and startled gasp. But then he connected the dots, which should have been easier for him, and his heart jumped in his chest like said chubby, purring cat had been startled into running away.  
“Sou-chan?” He murmured low, with his hands now moving in front of him and meeting more of the other man’s body, specifically his chest and neck. Sousuke didn’t seem to think much of it, possibly because he was used to it by now. Maybe he was smiling, too.  
“Yeah. Rin just really wanted to surprise you with me. He told me to wait here and shut up until you’d guess who I was… said you’d have fun with that.”  
“Actually, at first I thought someone was stealing in the house! I don’t even know why anyone would want to steal from me, I mean, I barely have stuff and money anyway, but they can grab some dog food if they want,” Nagisa joked, easily now that his mood was so light and pleasant in contrast with the way he’d been feeling right up until the morning. He could sense Sousuke’s smile, and then Sousuke’s hand cupped on one of his cheeks. His smile turned softer, a bit more serious too, but still happy.  
“Was Rin right in making _me_ a surprise for you? Like, I don’t know if you’re pleased at me being here, but I really wanted to see you anyway,” Sousuke’s voice replied, with a bit of uncertainty. He scratched his nape, a bit awkward, and Nagisa seemed to sense the embarrassment between them because he responded with a small puff and his expression turned harder all of a sudden.  
“Well, you tell me how things are,” Nagisa said, in a bit of an accusatory tone, but the thrum in his chest made him understand he cared more for the answer than his own irritation. “I didn’t send you more texts because I thought you’d reply at some point.”  
Sousuke’s breath caught up in his lungs, even though he knew that topic would pop up.  
“Straight to the point as usual, huh,” he hummed, scratching his neck again. “Listen, I’m sorry. It’s just I… come from complicated stories. I had some after high school and for one reason or the other they were all short-lived. All of them, and all of them have been disappointing, y’know?” He continued, in a careful way. “I mean… I know we have, or had, something going on. Right? I’m just not sure it could work. In all honesty, you made me understand you weren’t sure either, so I thought maybe it was better not getting any more involved. But I did miss you, actually,” he added, with a violent red now spreading on his cheeks up to his ears. “I’m sorry I didn’t act my best but, um, I guess what I really want right now is to try and see how it goes. I mean, what’s another disappointment after all? I’m sort of used to it.”  
Sousuke’s mumbling left Nagisa silent for a few seconds, as he processed the response with some nervous fidgeting. Despite the hurt he’d accumulated in his chest since they’d separated, he couldn’t help finding that response endearing in its own way, specifically how Sousuke sounded insecure, fragile evn, for a moment. Like what happened between them had been actually _important_ and worth continuing.  
“So you’re asking me to be with you?” Nagisa summarized, a bit thrown aback, and then he added unable to help himself, “as some sort of consolation prize?”  
_You prick_ , he told himself. _You know that’s not what he means_. When had he gotten bitter? He seemed to realize only now just how sour his mood had gotten in the last few years. Before, he probably hadn’t cared about it.  
“No. Damn. That’s not what I meant at all,” Sousuke protested immediately, but then sighed. “That’s not what I meant,” he repeated. “I meant… if it doesn’t work out, then I won’t be a wreck, hopefully. Not because I don’t care for you and not because I don’t wanna make it work, but because… well, it’s sort of the story of my life. Being left behind. You know? I’m used to it. So I might as well jump in it after all,” he explained then, not even knowing what he was going to say as he said it, but finding out it did make sense.  
Well, that sounded a bit sad, and Nagisa’s lashes fluttered a few times out of surprise, but after all his own situation was quite sad too. His eyes went wide and the metaphorical chubby, cuddly cat curled up in the middle of his chest again.  
“Yeah. I do know what you mean, actually,” he replied, with a smile growing on his face once more, a sympathetic one. “I know what you mean. You’re scared, right? We’re in the middle of our twenties and both of us are stuck. And ours should’ve been just a stupid fling, but it kept bugging us… well, at least I know it bugged me.”  
Sousuke took a deep breath, partially with relief. Or nervousness. Anyway, Nagisa got the point. And as usual, he was not hiding anything about how he felt.  
“It bugged me too,” Sousuke confirmed with a muttering tone, and bit a little on his lip, feeling like a clumsy teenager who was dealing with a crush for the first time.  
“I like you, Sou-chan,” Nagisa said out of the blue with a cheerful trill like it wasn’t something serious to say, and Sousuke’s back straightened suddenly.  
“Eh? Oh? Really? I mean… That was kinda random,” He blubbered, and blushed again while the blond grasped on his wrist to move closer and lean his head against Sousuke’s shoulder.  
“Yeah, don’t be so surprised. I always liked you. I mean, when we met you seemed grouchy and cold, but you were Rin-chan’s friend so I knew you couldn’t be bad, and you aren’t, so I’m right!” Nagisa replied, and grinned.  
“Well, that’s… good,” Sousuke replied with a small croak, and then finally touched Nagisa’s pink cheek, and his thumb drew small circles on it. Nagisa’s skin was so smooth, it felt like he hadn’t gotten any older since high school. And then he figured he should say something too.  
“I, um… I like you. You’re cool. I liked talking and hanging out and uh… having sex with you, and all the rest,” he said with a more and more awkward tone, and sped up the last part like he wanted to get it off his chest as less awkwardly as possible, which of course only made it more awkward. Nagisa giggled though, his shoulders bounced softly, and then he glanced up with stars glittering in his magenta eyes. Sousuke wondered whether it would be possible for Nagisa to look at him again, but the other did so, his way: he placed his hands on Sousuke’s cheeks and then began pressing and dragging with his fingers around Sousuke’s features, which the other let him do closing his eyes and trying not to imagine how ridiculous his face was looking, being squished and stretched like that. Nagisa’s face scrunched in focus, but the more his fingertips pressed against Sousuke’s skin, the more his expression distended in stupor, _awe_ even. Sousuke didn’t realize he’d held his breath until he gasped at the bright smile on Nagisa’s face after he opened his eyes, like Nagisa really had been able to _see_ him for a moment there.  
“I’m happy you’re here,” Nagisa finally said, letting his hands drop and brush lightly against the taller’s arms, tempted to link with Sousuke’s own hands.  
“Oh,” Sousuke replied in a hum, with relief flooding his lungs and almost making his head spin. He was not supposed to be _this_ happy about it. “Oh, right, happy birthday,” he added quickly, embarrassed again as he took a step back followed by Nagisa’s immediate giggle.  
“Got a gift for me?” Nagisa teased, with a little poke to Sousuke’s stomach.  
Now, Sousuke wished he could say something sappy, something Rin would’ve said, something like: ‘well, I’m your gift, Nagisa,’ and then sweep him off his feet with a breath-taking kiss and tongues _battling_ or whatever romantic crap he thought someone would expect from him. But he simply let out a sigh, and fidgeted for a moment with a bracelet around his wrist.  
“Yeah. I got you something, actually. I’m not sure you’ll like it, though,” he replied, and his voice went lower and lower until it faded while he still spoke. He cursed himself for being so shy around Nagisa, like he could get physically hurt by such a small thing. He sounded submissive, even.  
“Well, you can’t know until you give it to me!” Nagisa squeaked, bouncing on his toes again and accidentally crashing against the door before bursting in giggles and pounding on it until Nanako trotted over asking from the other side: “did you guys talk?”  
So she knew everything, maybe she’d even plotted with Rin as well! Nagisa grinned.  
“Yes, you witch, I wanna see Sou-chan’s gift for me! It’s not here, is it?” He replied, overly hyped all of a sudden with a manic grin, but Sousuke coughed behind him which forced him to turn.  
“Actually, yeah, I put it here. It’s stupid, though. I mean, I’m sure you have it already,” he murmured with an obvious edge of shyness.  
“Oh! Oh! What is it?!” Nagisa shrieked then, hopping towards him. “I don’t care, give it to me, give it to me!”  
Sousuke’s face turned pink again, a delicious shade of it that Rin would have defined ‘adorable’ had he been right there. It was a blessing that he wasn’t at the moment. Speaking of which, everyone else was still in the other room and the main focus of attention was not with them…  
“I’ll give it to you later.”  
“Absolutely not!” Nagisa yelled out, and then began bouncing on his toes and flapping his arms in front of himself as he searched for Sousuke’s shirt to cling on it. “Please, please, please!” He began repeating, and Sousuke for a moment stood there observing how blond, fluffy curls bounced reflecting the afternoon light which filtered through Nagisa’s ever messy room.  
“Later, when I’ll be alone with you. Now you should really stay with the others, haven’t you missed them too?” He reasoned calmly, pressing both of his palms down on Nagisa’s shoulders and pulling him close in a hug which the other responded to with a calmer hum.  
“Then you won’t go away,” Nagisa muttered, a bit disappointed for not getting his gift immediately, like a child. “And! You can spend the night here! I’d really like for you to,” he added, though, and went on his toes with something cheeky and malicious flashing in his expression. At that point, there was really no turning back, despite the fact that Sousuke’s mind was still riddled with questions and worries about Izanagi all alone back at their flat, finding a replacement position for his job - which really could not go on forever like that - and then there were the bills and a rent and the future to think of, things he still had not really figured out.  
He kissed Nagisa’s soft, small lips anyway, bending a little until he went beyond the point where he could play it off as a mistake. He cupped Nagisa’s face, maybe a bit too roughly, but nervousness had made his fingers clench around the other’s cheeks a little. Still, he thought, after all everything had turned out more or less alright despite the clumsy and unskilful moments. Now he just needed to figure out what he should do. Easier said than done.  
That first kiss between them - at least the first after a while - felt like a taste, something to get used to each other’s lips.  
He bit a little down on his own lip, before kissing Nagisa’s mouth again in a more relaxed hum and sucking on the younger’s lip before slowly dragging his tongue to caress Nagisa’s warm and wet one. The smaller male reacted with a low sigh, and his fingers dug through strands of short dark hair appreciating its softness with a little groan scratching its way out of his lips. He clung on Sousuke’s shirt, and then pulled him down even further to press their mouths together, harder, while his tongue flicked and pressed against Sousuke’s, slid and tasted around his mouth.  
Both of them were panting and pink in the face, their eyes were shiny and filled with desire, but they recomposed themselves knowing they couldn’t do more right now, it would not be fair or polite to the others.  
“Okay, I’ll stay the night,” Sousuke finally agreed, if anything encouraged and eager now, and then pulled Nagisa’s arm linking it to his own.

He led the way back to the quite crowded room, where Nagisa could sense there was some tension and curiosity.  
“Sorry about that,” he finally said, eliciting a knowing giggle from everyone else, and Rin’s hand patted on his back promptly.  
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said out loud, then he spoke closer and lower near to his ear, “did you guys make up?”  
“Huh? Um… yeah, there wasn’t any need to ‘ _make up_ ’, technically, but yeah,” Nagisa replied uncertain with a slow, delicious red tint spreading across his face. Rin laughed low, and ruffled his hair.  
“Good, good,” he hummed, glancing towards Sousuke. “So I take it our plan worked.”  
“Where’s Gou-chan?” Nagisa asked out of the blue, turning his head around a few times as if he could scan the small crowd for her. “I missed her too.”  
“She’s coming tomorrow, she couldn’t wiggle out of work for today,” Rin explained, patting Nagisa’s head. “But I’ll tell her you missed her, so she’ll get a move on and come here quick.”  
Nagisa nodded. “Thank you!” He replied, and hugged Rin again with a chuckle. “I haven’t been this happy in a long time… thank you for everything.”  
Rin held him tight, and sighed.  
“Well, I never really apologized for treating you guys like shit, so…” He muttered. “I’m sorry. I really did miss you when I was in Australia, you and the others of course.”  
“Eh? No, don’t worry, I didn’t think you were being mean on purpose,” Nagisa replied, letting go of him and smiling. “I was happy you were back, that was enough for me.”  
Rin touched his chest, moved by the moment, but then Momo jumped on them and began yapping, “cake! Cake! Cake! And I wanna give Nagisacchi my beetle! It’s super cool, he got soooo big!” He said excitedly, widening his hands in an exaggerated representation of an enormous bug as wide as both his arms.  
Nagisa cackled, and nodded turning his eyes in Momo’s direction as well.  
“I can’t wait! Is there cake too? You guys thought of everything!” He replied, and then grabbed Momotarou’s hands taken by his contagious excitement.  
“Yes!”  
“Someone made your favorite. Strawberry shortcake, right?” Ai popped in from seemingly nowhere since he hadn’t spoken much, but he still talked gently, just as Nagisa remembered.  
“Oh! I love it!” Nagisa confirmed, with a quick nod and a bounce on his toes. “Where is it? I’m hungry!” He realized, and then giggled. “Can we eat it now?”  
“Yeah. And actually, we should give credit where credit is due, Rei made it,” Rin replied, and Nagisa turned his head to search for his ex. “Actually, you guys are supposed to be _exes_. You shouldn’t be in such good terms,” He added in a mutter, but then he glanced at Sousuke with a smirk which the other retorted to with a grunt.  
“Well, we see each other every other day,” Sousuke muttered, a bit embarrassed by the moment and the topic. But then again he knew Rin liked to tease him about it.  
“Yeah, we’re not normal,” Rin replied, with a smirk, but then Ai cleared his throat, embarrassed as well.  
“Anyway! Who’s gonna go get the cake?” Rin added, louder, while looking around. Haruka, who’d been quiet as usual, looked at him with a small, amused smirk, knowing Rin was pumped about this probably more than anyone else, even Momo.  
“You could go get it,” he said looking at his teammate, but Nagisa’s head turned towards him automatically upon hearing him.  
“I didn’t hug you!” He protested, and fumbled his way to his friend with his own heart stuttering and embarrassment showing up on his face.  
“That’s fine,” Haruka tried to respond, but the moment Nagisa found his way towards him it was already too late, he hugged Haruka as tight as possible, taking his breath away. Both of them kept silent, but Haruka began petting Nagisa’s head affectionately, eliciting loving hums from the smaller male he used to regard as a little brother.  
Olivia began whining for affection after a few more minutes of chatter, and Nagisa sat on his couch letting the dog rest his head on his lap, while everyone else went on chattering and drinking.  
The afternoon went on and the sun showed up hard and hotter than ever. The company kept celebrating with, chatter, cake, stories, light drinks, until everyone grew tired or bored, which couldn’t be helped, and Rin proposed to take a walk around and visit their town since it had been a while since they’d walked around it, and Nagisa smiled with a nod.  
“I’ve been around this morning… but I’ll come! Only if you walk with me!” He replied, and Haruka laced their arms immediately after.  
“I’ll do it,” he said, and Nagisa smiled up at him gratefully.  
“Okay! So we’ll chat a bit,” Nagisa chirped at Haruka, even though he knew the other was not one to do small talk, but his company was always appreciated either way. And Sousuke grabbed his other hand, blushing a little at the surprised glance Nagisa gave him, but the corners of his lips tugged again in a smirk when the other gave a gentle squeeze to his hand. Nanako decided she would go out with them, and take Olivia out for a walk in the meanwhile.  
It really seemed like they’d gone back to high school times, hanging around the mostly quiet streets of town in the summer heat, filling the light and lazy air up with cheers and happy prittle-prattle, just as if they were boys still going to school. Sousuke treasured that as a pure moment of relax, already thinking of the hurried, suffocating rhythms of his life in Tokyo.  
Even the sun seemed to shine happy and warm rays of light down on them, blessing their promises of meeting up more often and connect again, maybe swim together while they were all there, of never letting their bonds fall and be forgotten despite the fact that their lives had gone in completely different directions.  
“You know, you’re sort of the reason why we all came together again in high school, after all,” Makoto mused, looking back fondly at Nagisa. “What would we do without you?”  
Nagisa blushed, his eyes turning down to the ground.  
“I… don’t know, I suppose?” He replied, all pink up to his ears.  
“Well, I sure owed you for convincing this stubborn ass to be in a team again, y’know,” Rin added, smacking a hand on Haruka’s back and eliciting an equally strong slap from the other.  
“Uhm,” Nagisa replied, pushing himself between his shoulders, uncomfortable and completely red in the face.  
They all smiled and burst in giggles, patting his back, until Momo came from his chatter with Aiichirou in front of them to propose a hit to the beach.  
“Oh, that’s a good idea!” Makoto hummed, and then looked at Haruka. “I bet Haru has his jammers under anyway…”  
The other looked back at Makoto without denying nor confirming, and they giggled.  
Turns out they all did, all but Nagisa.  
“I’ll be skinny dipping,” Nagisa replied, shrugging. “Not a problem.”  
“Cool! So to the beach we go,” Momo chirped, bouncing and then trotting ahead towards the shore.  
The sun was hot enough, the sea was calm and possibly already warm enough to swim in, and the sand was already drying up.  
It was definitely a good time to relax on the shore without thinking much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was supposed to be the shortest chapter and it turned out to be the longest. Wow. :o anyway, I guess the next is gonna be the last, and then maybe there'll be a short epilogue... I don't know. Honestly, as much as I want to plan this story it keeps going in directions I didn't plan, so it'll probably end up being a globally messed up, incongruent fic... Which is why I probably should've written it all and then started posting it after having it betaed... sigh. Oh, well.


	10. Chapter 10

Olivia yawned, wagging his tail lazily while sprawled on the floor which was slightly cooler than the air inside or outside the house. It had been hours since Nagisa went out, and Nanako had brought the dog back from their walk just mere minutes after the whole company had left, so the house was empty, but unexpectedly clean. Maybe the guys had actually cleaned up before leaving, which was definitely appreciated. That had spared Nanako some more work, and she had allowed herself to rest with some tea and television. Apparently for no reason, she smiled too, and patted her thigh to invite Olivia to come snuggle next to her. But the dog whined, too comfortable with having found some refreshment in the floor’s tiles. The hot and humid air was leaving him panting, and Nanako sweating a little, but she still insisted stubbornly to have the dog on her lap, so eventually he trotted over, and jumped on the couch to lean his head on her knees with a gruff puff of air.   
It was comfortable, despite the fact that Olivia’s fur was covering her legs now and making her sweat even more: she just didn’t think it was _that_ unpleasant to have some company. 

After a few hours, the sound of keys jingling outside the door and of various efforts to open it told her Nagisa and the others were back and that Nagisa was scrambling with the keys, so she stood up opening the door for them. Nagisa blinked before throwing a lazy smile in her general direction.   
“Thanks,” he said pushing in and slipping his shoes off. Something caught her attention, and she looked him up and down with a frown, then she realized blinking that he was completely damp from head to toe.   
“What happened to you?!” She screeched, and pulled him in. Sousuke, Rei, Rin, Haruka and the others were right behind him, but only the four of them stepped in and took their shoes off as well.  
“We went swimming, and Nagisa didn’t have a swimsuit…” Rin replied, trying to sound apologetic. He probably realized only then that it had been a rushed idea, not one he regretted though.   
“Oh. Come on, let’s go dry you up,” Nanako said, and then looked at the rest of Nagisa’s friends still outside. “Aren’t you coming back in?”  
“Ah, I’m going to visit my family. It’s been a while since I last saw them,” Makoto cooed, with a smile.   
“Same here. Also, nii-san needs help with some stuff he didn’t even tell me about,” Momo added, pouting.  
“I want to see my family too, but we’ll see each other again. I mean, we’ll _meet_ ,” Aiichirou said and then corrected himself, trying his best not to burst in a blush.   
“That’s for sure! I had fun today,” Momo continued, and grinned quickly. “Besides, I think we all took a couple of days off to stay, so we’ll definitely hang out again, like tomorrow?”  
“That sounds good to me,” Nagisa said with some warmth in his voice. It just came natural at that moment, being so relieved by spending time with his friends again after so much time. “Maybe we could do another water gun battle.”  
“But how would _you_ play?” Sousuke asked, blinking, and Nagisa did the same, before blushing a little. Right, he couldn’t play a game about aim without being able to see a target at all.  
“Sou, you’re a dick,” Rin sighed. “Anyway, we should definitely all meet up again.”  
“Matsuoka-kun, not to be rude, but aren’t you meeting your family too?” Nanako asked him, a bit surprised.   
“Ah, later. I mean, Gou’s coming in a few hours, so I have time to help mother up with the cleaning,” Rin said with a sharp smile. Sousuke looked suspiciously his way: he had the impression that wasn’t why Rin was sticking around. Rin just blinked back at him, with an innocent look and a smile, then talked to the rest of their friends.   
“Keep your word, you guys. Don’t disappear.”  
“We won’t,” Makoto replied, with a nod and a sweet, trust-worthy smile. A couple of minutes later they were gone.   
“Do you want some tea?” Nanako asked those who stayed, and Haruka nodded for all of them. 

“So, Rei, how are you doing?” Rin asked, stirring a bit of sugar in his cup.  
“Ah… well, I am still caught up with research, but I’ve been offered to teach in University recently, so I should evaluate that as well,” Rei replied, looking out of the window.  
“Wait, so you’d be a Uni professor? Already?!” Sousuke asked, blinking impressed. Haruka looked at them apparently impassive, and threw a glance Nagisa’s way.  
“Yes. I should just understand whether that’s what I really want right now… you know, I’m not sure I want to teach,” Rei muttered, with a small blush tinging his cheeks.   
Nagisa sighed loudly. Haruka and Rin turned their heads to look at him, and found Nagisa’s gaze lost somewhere around Rei’s face, with an expression that was a mix of pain and longing. Rei looked at Nagisa, with a small frown, then his eyes darted to the others as well, and finally he blinked surprised, as if they all just had a conversation he was just hearing bits and pieces of.   
“Well… anyway, I still have to decide. Rin-san, how is your career?” He asked, before taking a long sip. Rin looked back at him a bit curious, but then he passed his fingers through his maroon hair with a casual expression.  
“Mm. It’s good. Me and Haru have a meet next month… and our coach is already driving us crazy with training regimes. Sometimes we stay at the pool up to three or four hours, not counting the gym time to lift weighs and shit, so basically we only have time to eat and sleep and we just have a couple of hours to ourselves. We only managed wiggling out of the pool for the weekend by promising him to put extra work in as soon as we’d come back…” He replied, while Haruka nodded along, and then Rin grinned at Sousuke. “Which is why I expect you two to get officially together by today or tomorrow, tops.”  
A short silence lay on them, before getting abruptly broken.  
“Eh??” Sousuke and Nagisa replied at the same time, and then frowned. Haruka just looked around the table, observing the situation.  
“You want us to do _what_?” Sousuke asked, his eyes widening as his face went completely red.  
“You heard me. I want you two to stop walking on eggshells around each other and stop being ambiguous about it and get together already. I think Rei is of my same opinion here,” Rin continued, and then scoffed at Sousuke’s stunned expression.   
Nagisa’s face turned completely red, and he tilted his head down toward the table, while a short silence settled among them. Rei cleared his throat, but didn’t object to what Rin had said.  
“If you don’t admit you actually want each other, I’ll tell Gou to drive it into your skulls. She can be _so_ convincing, and I think you both remember that,” Rin added with nonchalance.   
“Because it didn’t take _you_ ages to figure you liked Sousuke,” Haruka commented low, sarcastic and dry, before sipping his tea while Rin glared at him.  
“That’s a good reason to push this then, right? Not wanting your friends to make your mistakes or something,” Rin retorted, and puffed air out annoyed.  
“How is it any of your business?” Sousuke interrupted them. He stuttered once, and his whole body tensed up while his eyes gleamed with a certain glimmering light.   
“Well, I suppose we are just concerned about you and your apparent inability to just say you clearly _are_ pining for one another,” Rei explained, unexpectedly calm with the situation.  
“Rei-chan, how… would you _really_ be okay with it?” Nagisa asked, with a head tilt, and tried his best to ignore his own cheeks flaring red and unbearably hot. It really was surprising how both their exes were basically teaming up to push Nagisa and Sousuke to get together - an almost unique circumstance.   
“Of course I would, Nagisa-kun. Honestly, it’s almost painful to see you scramble and try to act like you haven’t been lonely and miserable, since shortly after the accident,” Rei retorted, shaking his head. Of course he avoided to spell out: ‘since we broke up’.  
That seemed to irritate and embarrass Nagisa in equal parts, because he just pressed his lips in a thin line with his fists clenching over the table, before taking a deep sigh but keeping silent nonetheless. Sousuke looked down at him, with a sympathetic glance, and then he shrugged looking at Rin.   
“Well, it’s not up to you to tell me this,” he stated calm, and drank all of his tea in one gulp ignoring the burn screaming down his throat. “Let’s talk about something else,” he coughed, and glared in Nanako’s direction since she had silently listened to the whole exchange. Just how much had these guys planned to corner Nagisa and Sousuke into… what? Giving each other a full, romantic confession with cherry blossoms appearing all around them? It was not going to happen anyway. Not the way Rin had certainly envisioned. And the circumstance was certainly one of the weirdest Nagisa had found himself in. He fidgeted and squirmed, gripping on his seat like he was going to get ejected from an airplane.   
“Not gonna happen,” Rin retorted, slamming his hand down on the table, maybe a bit too hard, and the cups trembled on their saucers. “Me and Rei already discussed this, and we are both more than okay with it. And I want you guys to tell it all to each other.” He paused, which seemed way too dramatic and so much like him… “Because, well, I spent way too much time hiding how I felt.”  
He grinned, glancing at Sousuke before his eyes pinned Nagisa down somehow, even though they could not be looked at. Maybe the tension was a real force. Haruka seemed to be outside that bubble though, as he kept sipping his beverage while observing the situation.  
“The same goes for me. I hid my true thoughts, and I hurt Nagisa-kun in the meanwhile,” Rei added in a gentle tone, looking straight into Sousuke’s eyes without paying any attention to Nagisa’s stunned expression. He kept talking while looking right at Sousuke, even though now he was talking about Nagisa with a slightly sad smile.  
“I never wanted him to feel guilty for saving a kid.”  
Finally he glanced over at his ex, and his lips tightened together for a moment.   
“I never wanted you to regret it. You are still like… a _hero_ to me,” he continued while blushing profusely, embarrassed in the silence among them as they could all sense his feelings. In a way, they did. Sousuke stilled, while Rin’s cheeks turned red as if that sentence had been addressed to him, and his breath caught up in his throat. Haruka’s eyes flew wide open and he blinked a few times, looking at Rei with surprise in his big blue eyes and then looking around at them like it was all a dream.  
Nagisa reacted by just staring. His eyes went wide, and his lips parted in surprise, while his cheeks blew red all of a sudden. Unable to say anything for a few seconds, he swallowed around a thick knot that just wouldn’t go down.  
“Rei-chan…” he finally murmured, and slowly he lowered his empty gaze since his eyes were filling up with moved tears, and he squirmed again, this time instinctively seeking to hide his face against Sousuke’s arm.   
Hearing that seemed to melt an impossibly tight tangle made with his guts that had lasted so long he’d tricked himself into thinking it wasn’t there. But when Rei absolved him, his eyelids fluttered open and closed a few times against Sousuke’s warmth, until his eyes burnt and he had to cover them while curling into himself with a mad heartbeat pounding in his ears.   
Nanako smiled at them softly, looking at Rei and Rin with a little nod while Sousuke blinked a bit panicked before patting Nagisa’s back.   
“Hey, um… there, there,” he muttered, and bit down on his lip. Nagisa tilted his head up, before settling better to wrap him in a heart-felt hug that would still hide his face from the others. Rei looked tenderly over at him, with a few more aching thrums from his heart before he took a long sigh and shook his head at his own thoughts. He was really ready to let go of all the things that had bothered him whenever he’d think about Nagisa, for his own sake too, and for real this time.   
“Okay,” Nagisa hummed, rubbing his eyes, and Sousuke looked down at him with an indecipherable but gentle, tender gaze.

“Well, I guess our job is done here, then,” Rin announced after a few more intense moments, and broke the silence as he looked over at Rei who nodded slightly, then added, “well, it’s time for us to go meet our families, right, Rin-san?”  
“Wait, you’re going?” Nagisa asked, turning his head around a few times with confusion before standing up slowly and touching his way to them.   
“Yeah. We figured you’d want to do something together and without anyone else. Maybe you could go out,” Rin replied, and then stretched a hand to ruffle Nagisa’s hair. “And Sousuke should gallantly offer,” he added as a joke.  
“For me too?” Haruka asked, before throwing a soft, warm look in Nagisa’s direction.  
“Yeah, why not?” Rin replied, with a smirk.  
“Hey, don’t… ah. Well… that would actually be a good idea,” Sousuke muttered, looking sideways at Nagisa with his fingers moving slightly, nervous, obviously tempted to latch onto Nagisa’s. Then he glared at Haruka, more as a joke at this point given the hatchet had been buried sometime after his third year in school.  
“I don’t want Sou-chan to pay anything for me,” Nagisa protested, with a small frown, but then his expression cleared and his own hand naturally looked for Sousuke’s. It found the other’s ass though, and he puffed a giggle while Sousuke went a bit pink on his cheeks, then their fingers finally found their way linking together. Rei and Rin looked over with a smile, but Rin’s eyes looked a bit watery.   
Haruka looked from Nagisa to Sousuke a few times, and then he placed his hand solemnly on the taller’s chest, telling him in an almost threatening tone and looking absolutely serious: “you’d better treat him right, Yamazaki.”  
Sousuke raised an eyebrow, and swatted the other’s hand away with a scoff.   
“What are you, his dad or something?” He grumbled, while the others looked on amused.   
“I’m just looking out for my friend,” Haruka protested, but then he seemed to relax, and patted Nagisa’s shoulder turning his gaze to him.   
“I never thought I’d see this day…” Rin said with an amused smirk which Nagisa heard in his voice.   
“So you guys and my sister teamed up, huh…?” He hummed, and shook his head, amused. “I’m glad that you’re my friends.”  
“Hey, that’s the least we could do for you!” Rin replied, and then hugged him before clearing his throat and taking a step back with a soft blush. Rei stepped forward instead, and leaned a hand to Nagisa’s arm.   
“It’s good that you are feeling better,” he said, in a gentle murmur. Sousuke once again seemed to turn pinker, and Nagisa squirmed a bit awkwardly, but then he nodded, beaming.  
“I’m happy I met you all together. That’s… really all I missed right now,” Nagisa replied with a bit of a shaky voice, searching for Rei’s hand and then holding it between his own two. There was also a shiver running up his arm the moment he realized Rei’s squeeze was softening. And a wave of something bitter washed on him. Maybe that Rei was truly letting go of him, even after having made a lot of memories together since high school. Nagisa seemed to doubt himself for a second, and his behavior when they were together, but Rei’s voice sounded tranquilizing when he spoke next.   
“We’ll hang out together a lot again, Nagisa-kun. Don’t worry.”  
After a few seconds of thoughtful silence, finally Nagisa nodded, and gave the other a little smile before wobbling in his direction and stretching his arms out for yet another hug, which Rei gave him with his own arms wrapping softly around his ex’s smaller frame.  
Sousuke looked at them with a slight, concerned frown, and he looked over at Rin. The ice spreading in his chest lasted a few seconds, but he silenced it because Nagisa and Rei had a right to keep close to one another. Besides, Rei finally looked at him, with a little sad smile, before placing his hands on Nagisa’s shoulders and turning him around.   
“I hope everything works out for you,” he hummed, looking away the moment he gently nudged Nagisa to touch Sousuke’s chest and grasp on him. Rin nodded, and glanced at his accomplices, then he shrugged walking past the two.  
“Well, as I said, I think I’ll be going home,” he announced, maybe a bit embarrassed and sounding definitely moved. So him, Haruka and Rei left one after the other, among promises of coming back the next day, and they exchanged glances on various levels of embarrassed and knowing before finally leaving.

Nanako patted her brother’s back, and kept her hand on it while saying, “I’ll be going out as well.”  
Nagisa’s body scrambled for her, and when his fingers found her wrist they wrapped tight around it. He pulled himself toward her, and his fingers trailed up her arms before lacing behind her neck in a tight, grateful hug with the scent of delicate flowers and strawberries mixing together.  
“Thank you, sis,” he murmured so that only she would hear, with a small blush, and she froze in place for a few seconds, but then she smiled benevolent holding him close to her.  
“I just wanted to see you happy,” she replied, also in a low whisper, and then cupped his cheeks looking at him.   
Sousuke looked at them with his chest clenching: maybe it was a moment Nagisa should have had alone with his sister, but then she gazed right at him ruffling Nagisa’s hair.  
“I think you’re a good person, Sou-chan,” she told him, and then bowed her head slightly to him. “You took care of my brother and made him happy. Please continue to do that.”   
Sousuke’s cheeks blew pink again for what seemed like the hundredth time today - he had a feeling it was not going to be the last - and cleared his throat while nodding. Time seemed to stretch infinitely, before he finally replied.  
“I, um… I’ll do my best.” His voice seemed to shake a little as he looked down at Nagisa, and then his hand slowly trailed down to latch onto Nagisa’s smaller one, with a hint of fear, definitely overwhelmed with insecurity.   
“Sou-chan, so you’ll be with me?” Nagisa asked the question they’d been dancing around for too long now, his eyes shone big and hopeful while his fingers tightened around Sousuke’s. And his breath froze for a moment.  
The taller man looked down at him, with some embarrassment darkening his cheeks in red, and then he grumbled. Which somehow Nagisa interpreted as a yes of sorts.   
“That… is amazing!” Nagisa chirped, all of a sudden holding Sousuke’s hand while jumping up and down euphoric as if the bad mood that had covered him for the last few years had lifted, like his teenage self had always been there, but had been held back by guilt and fear. But then his expression seemed to darken for a moment. “I’ll help you too, Sou-chan. I’ll do what I can,” he affirmed, with a tone that didn’t tolerate a no. He was obviously talking about that damaged shoulder and faded future.  
Sousuke looked down at him, and pressed his lips together in doubt. But then they stretched in a light, kind smile which transpired in his voice as he quietly hummed his approval.   
“Okay.”  
“Oh! Speaking of which!” Nagisa chirped up again, now definitely sounding relieved - Sousuke could tell from the way his voice seemed to flow without any restraint now, loud and high. “Coach Goro is looking for someone who could help him coaching and training at the ISC, what do you think?” He went on, and gave Sousuke’s hand a gentle squeeze. “You could stay in the swimming scene and maybe doing some exercise could help you swim again…”  
“… Maybe not at a pro level, but that’s a brilliant idea,” Nanako chimed in, and the two men both gasped realizing she’d been there the whole time looking at them.   
Sousuke gazed from one to the other, and his free fist clenched.   
“That’s… definitely a good idea. I need to think about it, after all if I were to work here I’d have to move back…” he mused out loud, with his fingers rubbing along his chin.  
“Well, I mean… I’m just saying. You told me you couldn’t find a job fitting for you in the city, and Coach Goro mentioned this to us…” Nagisa added, and his voice sounded tense like the grip of his fingers around Sousuke’s hand.   
“No! I mean, yes, I see what you’re saying, I only need some time to think this through, it’s kind of sudden,” Sousuke muttered, and then he looked from Nagisa to Nanako freezing a little. They both looked at him expectantly, but after she realized it Nanako smiled, giving him a nod.  
“Of course, Sou-chan,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. “And if you can’t move back here, then maybe Nagisa-kun can come over to Tokyo…” she suggested in a careful tone, turning her gaze over to Nagisa who tensed up immediately again and started stuttering.  
“I don’t… I mean, it’s not like I want to demand anything, but… it’s just so much… so _scary_ , and I feel like I couldn’t…”   
He let go of Sousuke’s hand to fidget with his own fingers before shutting his mouth and scrambling to escape in his room, his face looking like it had gone a bit paler than usual. Nanako blinked while attending to the small, mild freakout, and bit her lip with guilt.   
“Oh…” she was only able to say, cupping her own cheek with a hand. “I didn’t think he’d still be so scared of it. And to think he dreamed of going around the world…” She commented, and sighed, rubbing her eyes.   
Sousuke stared at the corner Nagisa had disappeared behind, and then looked over at Nanako before finally passing his fingers through his own hair.  
“I suppose he’s scared of having to memorize new routes and…” He began, but then Nanako interrupted him.  
“What if he wants it too much but he knows it would hurt him not to be able to see?” She suggesed, and rubbed her forehead. “I’m sure Tokyo always thrilled him and for one reason or the other he was never able to go there. So… maybe it just feels like he’d have something dangling in front of him that he can’t reach. I mean, other than practical reasons.”  
“I’d describe things to him, though,” Sousuke objected immediately, and shrugged. “I mean, if that’s the problem then it’s not too bad.”  
“I suppose you are right,” she replied, but grimaced looking away and then trotting over to the kitchen with the excuse of preparing dinner.   
Sousuke watched her leave, and after rocking on his heels for a few seconds his feet finally brought him in front of Nagisa’s door, and his hands moved to knock on it. 

He did not wait, he simply turned the handle and entered Nagisa’s room as quietly as possible.   
“Nagisa-“ he began, with a voice firm enough to be heard, but kind as well and ready to go mute in order to listen. But Nagisa’s startled gasp interrupted him - he had probably been lost in thought, or was torturing himself for the scene he’d just given.  
“Sou-chan!” The other squeaked like he didn’t know Sousuke was at his place at all, while sitting at his small desk and whipping his head around instinctively. “Eh, I’m sorry about all that…” He added, squirming a little on his chair. Sousuke looked at him with a light frown, and then finally sighed, sitting on Nagisa’s bed.  
“It’s okay,” Sousuke replied, and then went silent, looking around the room with a vague sensation nothing had changed in there since high school, even though he hadn’t seen any part of Nagisa’s house back then. It was just an impression.  
“It’s just,” Nagisa continued in a low, almost timid voice, still fidgeting a little while his body turned to face Sousuke and his eyes began wandering nervous, uselessly. “It’s just… it’s a _risk_.”  
Sousuke glanced at him, and sat cross-legged on the bed with his lip being tortured between his teeth before he finally sighed. So it wasn’t really about having something beautiful dangled in front of him and not being able to fully enjoy it like Nanako thought. Or anyway, that was not the main reason Nagisa was so scared.  
“Come here,” Sousuke sighed, moving on the bed to give Nagisa some space. Nagisa was ready to say something else, but then he blinked, his cheeks turning pinker, and after a few seconds of indecision he finally stood up, and plopped down on the mattress next to Sousuke who just glanced at him and then nudged Nagisa’s shoulder with his own. “Lay it on me,” he added, trying to sound casual.  
Nagisa played a little more with his own fingers, squinting like he was back at school and being tested orally in maths.   
“It all… well, it has to do with that accident,” Nagisa finally explained, lost in a sea of nothing. “I injured myself, and I almost died because I acted without thinking. And I don’t regret it, you know? But it definitely made me change the way I look at things in. Now I barely ever just do something out of instinct, when that was all I did before that… and I don’t take risks. Sometimes when I feel like I’m taking a jump in the void it all comes back to me and I just freeze.”  
Sousuke nodded, for the most part still, waiting.   
“Well, that was a really bad trauma if I’ve ever heard of one,” he commented.  
Nagisa nodded, and then he bit softly on his lip before grinning nervously out of the blue.   
“Do you want to see my scar?” He asked, with a little smile. “It’s cool. I mean, it’s the only cool thing about all of it,” he added, pointing at the back of his head. “Although I can’t get the haircuts I want because then it’d show…”  
“Uh… sure,” Sousuke replied, holding a grimace back. Nagisa flashed a smile at him, like they were going to do something exciting, and turned his back on Sousuke while pulling some strands of hair on the backside of his head up. There was a long diagonal scar, highlighted by the fact no hair was growing on it, and it looked like its surface was sort of jagged. However, Sousuke looked at it tilting his head, and after a few moments of hesitation he wrapped his arms around Nagisa’s waist, moving closer.   
Nagisa’s hand let go of his blond locks, and a shiver ran all the way down to his stomach, but he just sighed low with a smile fading before he spoke again.   
“So many things can go wrong in a big city, you know? Like, I’m aware that there are braille walkways and whatnot, but it just seems… so big. And scary, and dangerous,” he said, quietly. “Maybe I just need some time.”  
Sousuke’s chin ended up leaning on Nagisa’s shoulder, and after a few seconds he nodded, his chest warmed up by the intimacy, but also frozen by indecisiveness.   
“But I get it if you don’t want to stay with me,” Nagisa said out of the blue. “I mean, it’s… hard. I’m a handful to live with, ask my sister.”  
Sousuke almost nodded in agreement, but he simply kept silent for a bit.  
“I would miss you,” he finally stated, and sighed. “And it’s not like I have anything worth staying for, in Tokyo, anyway. I mean, I do have something, but not something I can live off for a long time.”  
Nagisa’s breath caught up in his lungs, and then his head turned a little.  
“So are you going to stay here?” He finally asked, with his hands trailing down Sousuke’s arms hopefully.   
“I don’t know, but if I am I’ll still need to settle my business over there before moving back here. And I’ll need to meet your coach and see if he’d actually give me the job,” Sousuke replied. “Not to mention Izanagi is gonna throw a fit ‘cause he’ll have to pay rent for two so he’ll have to move again or find another roommate who’s actually willin to put up with him and he’ll probably kick my ass,” he added, and sighed.   
“Ah… yeah, I guess,” Nagisa hummed, and his voice climbed low, but then his breath hitched again when Sousuke’s hands moved to his thighs, rubbing circles on them with his own thumbs. “Sou-chan-”  
“It’s a ‘maybe’,” Sousuke said in a quiet tone, “but I’d say it’s more a yes than a no. Maybe if we stick together long enough I’ll take you to Tokyo.”  
“What do you mean with ‘if’?” Nagisa asked, alarmed, and his whole body tensed up in Sousuke’s arms.   
“I mean… I’m just saying,” Sousuke corrected himself quickly, but Nagisa was already holding his hand.   
“I don’t want to be alone,” he breathed out, and his quicker breaths meant his heart was beating faster, but almost painfully too.   
Sousuke squeezed his eyes shut with regret, already, but then he leaned his head against Nagisa’s.   
“That’s why I need time to figure this out. I don’t want to jump into something and then regret it and pull back,” he finally said. “I like you enough to get into it, but I don’t want to fuck this up. And I don’t want you to regret getting involved with me,” he continued, with a hint of bitterness sharpening his voice up at the end.  
Nagisa’s head hung low, but eventually he nodded, slow, while his body relaxed, all his muscles melted again into the warmth seeping through from Sousuke’s clothes.   
“Well… okay. Are you going back there in a couple of days?” He asked, slower while his fingertips rubbed gently and yet a bit shy along Sousuke’s forearm, and he leaned his head back into the other’s shoulder. Sousuke’s breath became just a bit deeper, but he nodded, widening his legs to better pull Nagisa into his embrace from behind.  
“Yeah.”  
Nagisa’s expression became melancholic, but only for a moment, before it turned into a little smile.   
“We should make the most of now, then. _Ne_ , Sou-chan?” He suggested. He turned his head, just as much as it was necessary for their lips to touch, and when Sousuke opened his mouth allowing Nagisa to play with his tongue they both hummed, as their bodies tingled with warmth and hot shivers, while their thoughts and problems faded in the background.   
Sousuke’s palms rubbed up and down Nagisa’s thighs, getting more and more impatient by the second, and rising up with each stroke until he rested both his hands on Nagisa’s groin and the other sighed on his lips.   
“Cute,” Sousuke hummed thinking he’d only told him that to himself, in his mind. Nagisa blinked fast at hearing that, and his cheeks flushed red again. After a moment he finally turned around, went on his knees and unsteadily used his hands to climb up on Sousuke’s lap. The two stilled for a while and studied each other before they leaned closer to one another again.   
“I said that aloud, didn’t I?” Sousuke asked low, his cheeks also gradually getting pinker.   
“Yeah,” Nagisa replied with a smirk. “That’s nice, I guess,” he said before cupping Sousuke’s face and kissing him: uncertain at first, then harder and more confidently, sucking on the other’s lip like life was rushing out of his mouth. Nagisa’s shoulders raised, he curled his back to give himself some illusion of being taller, bigger, and Sousuke let him with a smile while running his thumbs on Nagisa’s sides until he squeezed his hips softly, and their breaths were already warming up the air between their mouths. Sousuke’s teal eyes analyzed Nagisa’s expression: his eyes were drooping, staring pink somewhere around Sousuke’s lips even though he was aware they couldn’t really see them; plump and soft lips were parted allowing fast exhales and sharp inhales to rush in and out - breaths getting harder and more erratic as he seemed to be lost, but not afraid. His cheeks were fully red now, and only then he realized Nagisa’s fingers were shaking a little - maybe with something gripping on his throat from the inside and squeezing.   
“Nagisa, are you okay?” Sousuke asked through his own labored breathing, as he noticed this and grasped on one of them.  
“I’m sorry for acting cold with you last time we did it,” Nagisa murmured, as if he was a small child after getting scolded by their mother.   
Sousuke frowned, and his eyes narrowed as he tried to remember what exactly Nagisa was referring to.   
“Ah,” he finally replied, his expression cleared out. Although maybe something in his tone had sounded off.  
“I was trying to defend myself. After Rei-chan—“ Nagisa began, but Sousuke pecked his lips, effectively shutting him up.   
“It’s okay. I understand,” he blurted, his words quick and his hands already running under Nagisa’s shirt. “I understand,” he echoed, low - distant - and kissed Nagisa’s neck with a soft hum. Nagisa breathed out a soft groan, his eyes fell close and his head tilted sideways to allow more of Sousuke’s kisses and gentle breaths to caress his skin. His fingers tangled into Sousuke’s hair, tugged just a little, and he received a groan which vibrated on his skin.   
Sousuke’s blood was rushing fast, hard through his body; his pressure was increasing, and then he reminded himself —   
“Your sister’s home,” he muttered quietly, but didn’t stop dropping wet little kisses on Nagisa’s pale, smooth skin. Like Nagisa didn’t know.  
“Does it bother you?” Nagisa asked, rolling his hips into him.   
Sousuke grunted, and he mumbled, “a little. I mean… a lot, it’s embarrassing.”  
Nagisa seemed to stop breathing for a couple of seconds, but then he relaxed with a sigh, and gave Sousuke a stretched out smile as he sat back.   
“Don’t you want to do it?”  
“No, it’s just… I don’t want your sister to hear. I mean, it’d be… awkward,” Sousuke replied, redder and redder with each passing second.   
“Okay, wait,” Nagisa retorted, and climbed down, then opened the door squeezing his head through.  
“Nanako, can you take Olivia out?” He asked aloud.  
Nanako trotted over from the kitchen, already with a lot of questions on her lips, about dinner and whether Sousuke was staying, and she was going to protest that she’d taken the dog out mere hours before, but when she saw Nagisa’s face - his red lips, darkened cheeks, but most importantly when she saw his absolutely euphoric eyes - she giggled, and then sighed.   
“Fine, I’ll do it. Again. But we’ll eat late…”   
“I can cook something up,” Sousuke announced from behind Nagisa’s back, and Nanako nodded with a sharp, amused, maybe even a bit mischievous smile.   
“Oh, good! Come here, Olivia.”  
She clicked her tongue without a word about the situation, and after a couple of minutes she was out with the dog.   
Nagisa waited for the front door to be shut, and then he turned around, slowly taking his shirt off and then touching softly his way towards Sousuke.

Then up his body, and into his arms. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the longest chapter in this fic. And possibly the one I like the most.   
> Also, I'm planning another shorter chapter, which will be an epilogue. That is, if my muse doesn't decide differently. So I'll keep the thank yous and final notes for the next update, but thank you in advance for reading so far! <3


	11. Chapter 11

~ “ _Sou-chin_ ~”  
~ “ _Don’t you miss me? (;*_ △ _*;)_ ”  
~ “ _because_ _I do miss you, you big rude grump (_ 。┰ _ω_ ┰。 _)_ ”  
Sousuke grimaced at his phone, glaring down at it like it was guilty of reminding him Izanagi exists. Alright, it wasn’t that dramatic, but he was not in the mood for this, not in the morning, not after being woken up by his phone ringing. And not when he could have spent a bit of time looking at the naked, smooth skin on Nagisa’s back and debating on whether to touch him and risk waking him up. Maybe press a few kisses up his nape and hold him to his own chest. Now it was not even a question.  
“Who was it?” Nagisa mumbled, turning around and yawning before raising both his hands and moving them in the air like he was trying to catch a fly, but lazily, until he scratched his head yawning. Sousuke looked at him: his blond locks were a mess, his eyes drooping, and the morning light was not intense enough to give him much to shine with yet. But Sousuke took his hand anyway, and kissed his cheek grumbling, “my roomie in Tokyo. He’s not used to not having me around.”  
“Ah! The one you loved like you did Rin-chan? You did leave in a rush, and it’s only been six months,” Nagisa mumbled, as he sat up. He listened to Sousuke complain about Izanagi a lot, and yet never actually heard even a hint of real intolerance. “What time is it?” He added, lower, like he just realized now that he was not nearly awake enough to be having a conversation.   
“It’s eight in the morning, and I would never say I like him even remotely as much as I do Rin,” Sousuke retorted. “Anyway, wanna have breakfast?” He added while putting his trousers on. A glance to the sky outside made him squint, like he thought the sun had decided to personally bother _him_.   
Nagisa hummed, and stretched his arms out again while climbing down of his bed, then felt around for his own clothes. Last night was messier than he remembered, apparently, because he found his shirt right before the door, and his pants somehow had ended up under the bed. Good thing his weird thought processes had led him to search there, otherwise they would have been basically lost forever.   
“Did we get drunk last night?” He asked, with a frown.  
“Mm? No. I would remember it,” Sousuke replied, already out of the room. 

Nagisa reached him a few minutes later and slowly, lethargic, wrapped his arms around Sousuke’s body, while leaning his head against the muscular, wide back.   
“Good morning,” he hummed lazily, and kissed Sousuke’s shoulder blade, on the healing shoulder’s side. The muscles there were slowly starting to ache less, although Sousuke still needed to exercise and sometimes take painkillers - each change of season.  
He simply grunted, while cooking pancakes, and when Nagisa smelled it he lit up like a child.   
“Oh! Is this my gift?” He chirped, nuzzling his forehead against Sousuke’s back.  
“Mm… no, it’s just breakfast,” the other replied, a bit confused. And then he blinked, with a slight blush making its way across his face. “Oh. Right, I forgot to give you your gift…”   
It was Nagisa’s birthday again: a year had gone by ridiculously fast, and in between settling his business in Tokyo and moving back to the small coastal town of Iwatobi — in between getting all of his stuff back there and finally getting to a point of calling his parents’ house his own again, six months had passed easily. The other six, Sousuke he’d spent them starting a contract with coach Goro and learning to work with the town’s kids. Which was fine. Maybe the pool would become a bit too loud at times, but the children were mostly polite and some were challenging, but Sousuke had always been patient and despite not really having a teacher’s title he did see an improvement in his group of pupils’ swimming. So did coach Goro.   
Nagisa grinned, knowingly, and hopped on his toes while bracing on Sousuke’s sides to press a brief kiss to his nape.   
“Ah, the gift, that’s right,” he hummed, pretending very badly that that wasn’t his goal from the beginning. “What did you get me, Sou-chan?”  
Sousuke took a long breath, before turning the gas off and placing a pancake for each of two plates. He turned around holding one out to Nagisa, and bumped the plate softly against his chest so that Nagisa would know where it was.  
“First off, breakfast.” Sousuke paused, and looked for something in the fridge, then dropped a couple of strawberries next to it from a small plastic box. “There you go.” Nagisa touched the contents of his plate, and when he felt the fruit his face lit up in a giant, beaming smile.   
“They’re my favorite!” He chirped, and popped one between his lips like a happy child.  
Sousuke looked down at him with the corners of his lips curled up with kindness, and nodded.   
Rei did tell him, a few months before, that Nagisa seemed happier since he had met someone who could adapt to his slower rhythms without giving up a serene career as well. Of course, Sousuke was tempted to consider it condescending, but he knew that guy was pretty much a saint, as well. He surely did not feel demeaned or under-accomplished, when Nagisa’s ex was pretty much giving him a blessing.   
Besides, working at the Iwatobi pool somehow helped him conciliate with the fact that he would not swim with Rin again, not at the same level anyway. At least he could give advice to less experienced swimmers, teaching them not to make his same mistakes. To not overdo it when swimming, nor when they did anything else in their life… his mistakes would be someone else’s lesson. Also, coach Goro was a good guy, and understanding of Sousuke’s needs.   
“Hey, wish Nagisa-kun a happy birthday from me too,” he’d told Sousuke the day before, seeing him off the pool with a big grin.  
A year had passed since the surprise party, alright, but this time Nagisa’s celebrations were going to be as discrete as possible. Only him and Sousuke, at home, together: that sounded good, even though Nagisa had always been very open to being in the middle of crowds and loud chatter. However, his senses compensating for the lack of one had made him decide to be quiet, this year. No chaos. Relax. And Sousuke couldn’t have been happier with that decision, but he would not say that now. 

~ “ _Sou-chin, are you having sex_?”  
Izanagi again. Sousuke puffed air out in the middle of his post-lunch nap, before grabbing his phone and quickly reading that it was two in the afternoon. He read the message too and then replied.  
~ “ _Izanagi, don’t you have something to do with your life at least today_?”  
Of course, Izanagi’s texts were as fast as lightning, and Sousuke didn’t even have time to put the phone back in his pocket before it rang again.   
~ “ _Oh so you’re there! When are you coming for a visit_????”   
“Why does he always ignore me?” Sousuke muttered, and raised a hand to pet Nagisa’s head with soft strokes of his fingers. “Hey, Nagisa… Izanagi wants me to visit,” he said quiet and careful. Nagisa seemed to tense up from his lazy relaxation, so the other immediately specified, “it’s not to make you change your mind about it. He’s really pestering me to go back to Tokyo. Rin could be there too, plus I think we could have fun there. Just a few days.”  
Nagisa bit a little on his lip, his eyes moving nervously around, but then he eventually nodded, hesitantly.   
“Okay. Maybe Haru-chan and Mako-chan will be there too…?” He suggested, wrapping his arm across Sousuke’s chest and pulling himself closer to him.   
Sousuke glanced down at the blond head pressed against his shoulder, and eventually held it closer with his own arm in a warm, but still a bit shy hug.   
“Maybe. Write to them.”  
Nagisa slowly smiled, turning up his big magenta orbs in Sousuke’s direction.  
“Yeah. I will. But it sounds messy, especially in the center…”  
“I’ll hold your arm just like we always do,” Sousuke replied guessing Nagisa was beginning to worry, and then replied to Izanagi.  
~ “ _We’re coming soon_.”  
~ “ _Oh, ‘we’? Do you mean you and your boyfriend_?”  
~ “ _Yeah, I bet he’d like you_.”  
Sousuke looked down at Nagisa, and scoffed lightly. Sure enough, Nagisa would find Izanagi hilarious.  
~ “ _Of course! Everybody likes me <(_￣︶￣ _) >_”  
Sousuke grimaced at the text, and then ignored it, electing to wrap his arm tighter around Nagisa’s back instead as he thought of how they would spend the day. He would have to go to the pool, and then they would spend the evening watching television, maybe, or maybe have a group chat with Rin and Gou. Maybe go somewhere quiet to end the day.

“Take him to the beach this evening and give him your gift!”   
“Rin, that’s so _corny_ , even for you.”  
“It’s what you’re supposed to do! Something nice!”  
Sousuke sighed, while waiting for the cake’s base to bake in the oven. Nagisa was walking Olivia out, thus it was a perfect occasion to talk about the birthday with someone. Of course, choosing to talk about it with Rin should have made him expect something corny.  
“Well, you know I’m not much of a romantic,” he started, and he could hear Rin mumbling from the other end about how true that was. “Besides, what’s the point? He can’t see the stars or anything,” he continued, bending to check how the dough was doing. It was almost perfectly cooked, it was only missing the inevitable cascade of strawberries and whipped cream to be finished after resting a bit, of course. He knew Nagisa would like something simple (and with strawberries), instead of something elaborate: he wouldn’t be able to be in awe in front of some multi-layered cake with decorations or something written on it, anyway. Sousuke _did_ make sure to make everything extra-sugary, though.   
They argued a little bit more about how ‘corny’ Sousuke should be, and in the meanwhile Rin called him every possible name he’d been using for him since they were together.  
“Wow, Sousuke… how did I ever get together with you in the first place?” Rin grumbled, and Sousuke could _hear_ his grimace cut across the miles separating them. He shrugged.  
“I’m just being practical.”  
“You’re just being _lame_.”  
“Whatever. My point is: your idea is stupid,” Sousuke retorted, and checked the cake again. Alright, it looked good enough, but he opened the oven and made sure with a toothpick, stabbing the dough.   
“I thought I taught you something when we were together…” Rin muttered, before letting out a long frustrated sigh.  
“Honestly, the one thing I don’t miss is you being a pain about this stuff,” Sousuke replied, but mulled the idea in his head anyway, after all.   
“Oh, _wow_ ,” Rin growled, offended, but he gave up, eventually. “Well, whatever. I know what happens in the end when you say no, anyway…”  
“Wait, what?” Sousuke almost barked into the phone, with a deep frown.  
“I have to go, Sousuke,” Rin said evasive, but this time there was a victorious, knowing smirk in his voice. 

At the end of the day, Sousuke realized what Rin meant. After hours of doing pretty much nothing - other than trying in _every_ way to steer Nagisa clear of the fridge - Sousuke announced they were going out. _What a sucker_ , he thought scolding himself.  
Nagisa looked at him blinking in surprise.  
“Eh? Out where?”  
“Out. Just you and me,” Sousuke replied, and cleared his throat. “Bring Olivia if you want.”  
The dog raised his head at the mention of his name, and began wagging his tail after jumping on his feet. Nagisa looked like he was taken aback, but he shrugged, grabbed the leash and made Olivia wear it before he neared Sousuke to search then grab for his hand.   
“Okay, but where are we going?”  
Sousuke pursed his lips. But then he puffed air out, not seeing a reason to hide his intentions. He _wouldn’t_ mention Rin, though.   
“To the beach. Just wait a second,” he added, and his hand became unavailable again as he marched towards the fridge, took the cake out in a plastic bag and let a knife sit next to it. “Hopefully it doesn’t get ruined…”  
“Wait, there’s cake? So _that’s_ why we made out every time I was hungry today!” Nagisa trilled, and then began giggling.   
“Well, I wanted to make it survive the day,” Sousuke grumbled, and was followed out by Nagisa’s smile which lit his features up with a tender warmth.   
Nagisa clung to him, but his hold was not nervous or fearful: he just hugged Sousuke’s arm softly, instinctively tighter every now and then whenever he thought he was going to trip on something. And Sousuke had gotten used to automatically warn him beforehand, with all the walks they’d taken in five or six months of being more-or-less-officially together.   
“We met on the beach, last year,” Nagisa hummed interrupting the swishing sound of the plastic bag, and as he pointed that out his chest bubbled with something fuzzy and warm which brought a smile to his face. “I would’ve expected to be the one to talk to you first…”  
Sousuke looked down at him, a bit surprised by those observations.   
“Well… I’m not as asocial as I might seem,” he replied, with a light smirk. Nagisa felt it in the way Sousuke’s arm relaxed, and he also ended up with a soft smile as he walked confident even with the unpredictable way sand moved under his every step.   
The beach was empty, only a solitary cat was taking a walk on the sand, but it stared at them for a second before slithering away. The low rocks emerging from the sea right in front of the beach were black boulders disturbing the dark horizon’s line. The sea water lapped at them incessantly, letting Nagisa know exactly where they were, and gave him a feel for where exactly they were. It was not cold, but Nagisa’s arms shivered a little anyway, making him hold on tighter on Sousuke.   
“Let’s not get too close,” he chirped, maybe a bit fearful. Sousuke looked down at him, halting his steps, and then towards the water. It was so big, and dark. But Nagisa had been _in_ it just last summer.  
“What’s wrong?” He asked, and he automatically glanced to the back of Nagisa’s head, like the scar was going to bleed again out of nowhere.  
“I don’t really have a good feeling about being close to the sea right now… I mean, it’s okay, I just don’t feel like being too close.”  
“But you went into the sea last summer with the others,” Sousuke objected, however he sat down right there, at a reasonable distance from the seashore. Nagisa also sat next to him, bringing his knees to his chest like he was trying to _be_ smaller.   
“I know. It’s just… I have a bad feeling,” he replied, after gesticulating a little, but still unable to explain why. “Maybe it’s that I was alone with Rei-chan, and now I’m alone with you… it’s not that I don’t trust you, just like it’s not that I didn’t trust Rei-chan. It’s just…” He continued, but his voice faded with some more nervous gestures in the air.  
“Alright,” Sousuke eventually said, calm. “I didn’t even mean to get in, anyway.”  
He wrapped an arm around Nagisa’s shoulders, before squeezing him close and kissing the side of his head.   
“I know I’m being weird…” Nagisa muttered, and his face flared pink with shame. He hid it against his knees, and his whole body curled up in a way Sousuke had not seen it do yet. Like he was trying to turn into one of those rocks popping out of the sea’s surface.  
“It’s okay…” He replied, with a frown. This was turning out awkward, and possibly painful, and Sousuke was going to kick Rin in the face next time he’d see him.   
“It’s not okay! I hate all of this, I hate being blind and I hate freezing in front of the sea or in front of anything different! I used to love swimming and now I can only do it in the pool…” Nagisa retorted, raising his head a little. A small tear rolled down his cheek, and his throat felt tighter so that only a little sob came out of it. “I hate being afraid of everything, I wasn’t like this before.”   
He rubbed his cheek dry, and sniffled softly, making his shoulders jump a little.  
“Before,” he began again, low, “before I had so many plans, and I wanted to go around the world, and see a lot of different sights, and now I can’t. I can’t go anywhere because everything scares me, as well.”   
They sat there for a few more seconds, and then Nagisa’s voice dipped lower. “Sometimes I find myself thinking that I should’ve just let that kid drown, I would be able to see and who knows what I’d be doing instead of being stuck here and being too afraid to do anything else.”   
Sousuke’s eyes went wide right then, baffled.   
“That makes me horrible. Doesn’t it?” Nagisa continued, and gave another sniffle before rubbing both his cheeks.   
Sousuke looked at him in the evening’s darkness, thinking.   
“Well,” he started, slowly. “I suppose that accident messed you up. I guess it’s normal to wish such a thing. You didn’t leave the kid to drown though, so it’s fine, it’s just a thought. And you don’t have to be flawless.” He scratched his head, and added, “look, I’m not a psychologist. But maybe you could try and see one. Tell them all of this.”  
Nagisa hummed, still wrapped up in his shell.   
“It’s just I have a hard time talking about… problems. This is probably the first time I mention all of this…” Nagisa replied, and inevitably silence descended between them right after. “I mean, I guess my sister guessed all of it. But you know… I’d rather not mention it.”  
“And pretend you’re okay even when you’re not?” Sousuke asked, a bit harder than how he’d intended to sound.   
“I’m already a burden as it is,” Nagisa said, low.  
“Nagisa, stop,” the other replied, though, almost in a growl, but without sounding too aggressive or angry. More like frustrated. “That’s self-pitying and it’s not like you. You saved a kid! Without you, a child would be dead. That’s enough to be proud of.”   
Nagisa kept hanging his head low, on top of his crossed arms, without speaking. He did not sound completely convinced, and maybe Nanako had told him something similar before, because his expression looked a bit annoyed, like he’d been expecting to hear this.   
Sousuke’s lips twitched a little, and his face scrunched with the effort, but eventually he broke the silence before it could become awkward.  
“I mean… you acted selflessly, and you still keep on being kind and helpful, you didn’t stop just because it ended up taking something from you. And you’re a lot stronger than you give yourself any credit for. Maybe you lost a bit of determination, but I—“ He bit down a little on his lip, and now his cheeks were flushing, darker. “I’ve known you better, lately. You’re fun. You’re a cool guy. I think I like you more than I expected to.”  
Nagisa blinked, and slowly his face relaxed in a little smirk.   
“You ‘like me more than you expected to’? We’ve been together basically a year, Sou-chan…” He giggled, and shook his head in amusement. Sousuke cleared his throat, and shrugged lightly.   
“I like you,” he corrected himself.  
“I can take that,” Nagisa replied, and sighed. “I like you too.” He butted his head softly against Sousuke’s shoulder, with affection. “Sorry for freaking out. I’m still uncomfortable, but… talking about it made me calm down.”  
“Good,” Sousuke replied, with a smile. “Do you feel like eating some of that cake?” He asked then, grabbing the plastic bag which sat right next to him on the sand.   
“Oh… right! And there’s my gift too, right?” Nagisa asked, smiling again.   
Sousuke blinked, and bit down on his own lip before admitting, “I forgot it home. I’ll give it to you later…”   
Nagisa stretched his neck up, only to nuzzle his head against Sousuke’s shoulder.   
“Okay,” he replied, and then they sat there, mostly silent, eating cake comfortably on the beach at night before Nagisa began insisting out of nowhere that he wanted to take a dip in the water, and dragged Sousuke inside it.   
Before dawn they both got back home, drenched from head to toe and filling the floor up with droplets and tracks. That felt familiar.   
Sousuke didn’t mind the thought of having to clean that up tomorrow, though - now, Nagisa was grinning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I thought the previous chapter was gonna be the last, but this one got a life of its own and stretched more than I expected, so I decided to keep the epilogue for another chapter which hopefully will come fast. And then hopefully it'll be over XD thank you all for reading this far, anyway!


	12. Epilogue

“So, remember what I told you. Don’t give him too much attention. Like, talk to him, if you want, but don’t give him the impression you’re actually interested in what he’s saying or we’ll _never_ leave.”  
Sousuke sounded absolutely serious as he said that. His hand was wrapped firmly around Nagisa’s smaller one, and the blond man tipped his chin up as if he was looking at Sousuke. And then he began giggling low, nudging Sousuke’s shoulder with his head.   
“Come on, don’t be mean! I actually can’t wait to meet him, you seem to absolutely love him,” Nagisa replied, and then yawned tiredly while the elevator brought them a few floors up the property where a few of Hatsudai’s residents lived on rent.   
“He’s a pain in the ass,” Sousuke replied, with a bit of an irritated tone to his voice. “He’s always shoving in my business and seriously, he’ll never shut up a second.”  
“But you love him,” Nagisa teased with a wink, and then giggled amused. Sousuke glared uselessly down at him, before sighing and pushing out as soon as the elevator’s door opened. Nagisa chuckled, following his pull.  
“So, the flat should be around here,” Sousuke muttered opting to not reply, and looked down at his phone where a message filled up with emoticons and exclamation points had some sort of explanation that was supposed to guide him. Izanagi had moved from their previous flat, since of course he could not afford it anymore, and had moved to this quiet residential area right next to Shibuya, closer to Roppongi and the usual bar him and Sousuke had worked together at.  
“Wait, ‘ _should’?_ ” Nagisa repeated, a bit alarmed. Of course, a lot of things had gotten better with time. Sousuke’s hopeless orientation sense hadn’t.   
Luckily, someone shouted right at them in the middle of the calm, silent hall, making Sousuke turn around quiet as if he’d been expecting it, and Nagisa gasping with a squeak as he jumped and turned around as well at the same time.  
“SOU-CHIN!~” Izanagi screeched, and Nagisa heard a few steps rushing closer to them incredibly fast before an air shift made him blink. The second after, Sousuke was huffing and grunting as he apparently fought his ex-flatmate off himself.   
“God, Izanagi,” he grumbled, giving up almost immediately while the other man wrapped his legs around him.   
“Sou-chin, I missed you!” Izanagi yelled, “did you miss me too?”  
“Get off me, man,” Sousuke calmly replied, and forced all of Izanagi’s limbs away from himself.   
“Hey, this is your boyfriend, right?” Izanagi finally asked, simultaneously ignoring Sousuke’s protest.   
“Hi!” Nagisa replied, smiling towards his voice’s source. “I heard so much about you, Iza-chan!”   
“Oh! I like this guy! You’re just like me, right? But Sou-chin doesn’t treat you awfully like he does with me!” Izanagi complained, wrapping an arm around Nagisa’s shoulders. “Anyway, he told me a bit about your story, are you alright now?”  
“I treat you exactly as you should be treated,” Sousuke protested, but still with a quiet voice.  
“Sort of…” Nagisa replied, tensing up a bit and ignoring him.   
“Hey, what about we go to Shibuya and get some drinks all together? So we can catch up, Sou-chin!” Izanagi proposed, patting Nagisa’s shoulder.   
“Nah, we just came from Shibuya Station, actually. Like, we’re actually going to go back tomorrow morning, so this was sort of our last stop before going home,” Sousuke said, looking around. “Just dropped by to say hello since you were such a pain in the ass about it.”  
“You reduced our time together at the minimum!” Izanagi screeched, accusatory. “You are so mean, Sou-chin. Like, the meanest person I’ve ever met in the world.”  
Nagisa’s head also turned towards Sousuke, and he too had quite an outraged expression.  
“That’s _so_ mean,” he commented, and pursed his lips.   
“Right? He’s always like this,” Izanagi pressed, and crossed his arms.   
Sousuke rolled his eyes, and then shook his head lifting an eyebrow.   
“Well, I never asked you to be so insistent about things,” he replied, not even bothered. “So yeah. Hey. Good to see you,” he added, raising a hand and moving it lazily in the air. “Gonna go hom—“  
“Oh no, you aren’t!” Izanagi interrupted him, and snatched his wrist together with Nagisa’s forearm, dragging them both to his flat. “You’re going to stay here with me and tell me everything about what you did this year,” he commanded, ending it with a pout. “And you’re going to tell me all about the two of you!”  
Sousuke rolled his eyes, with a big inhale that faded in a half puff of air. Nagisa smirked, and commented, “I like him.”  
Sousuke grimaced, glancing down at the other.  
“Yeah, I thought you would.”

“You know, you’re pretty cute, Nagisa-chin” Izanagi declared after a few glasses of beer, looking at Nagisa.   
Sousuke’s eyes narrowed, cutting through him.   
“You’re straight,” he said, loud and blunt.   
“Yeah, so what? I can tell another man that he’s cute,” Izanagi replied, with a shrug. He glanced over at Nagisa again, capturing the amused smirk that was on his face before his blush faded.   
“Thanks,” he replied, and searched for Sousuke’s fingers, lacing his own with them in a soft hold.   
“See? He knows better than you,” Izanagi said, with an approving nod. “I like you, Nagisa, you’re cool.”  
“Aw, stop it,” Nagisa giggled, hugging Sousuke’s arm and hiding his face on it. Still, he couldn’t hide the blush which reached his ears and neck. Sousuke first glared at Izanagi - who blinked with a calm smile - and then patted Nagisa’s head.  
“But honestly, it’s true,” he stated, also turning a bit pink in the face. “He… he is. Cute, I mean. And a lot of other things,” he continued, looking down at Nagisa’s blond curls and dragging his fingers softly through them.  
At this point, Nagisa was squealing and squirming, still hanging onto Sousuke’s arm like it was his life line.  
“Stop it!” He whined, and buried his face into the other’s side, with embarrassment oozing from him.  
Sousuke found himself smirking down at him without even realizing, but then flicked his eyes towards Izanagi who was grinning like a Cheshire cat. So in that moment, Sousuke realized that had been Izanagi’s plan all along.  
“You _fucker_ ,” he said, dry and blunt, not missing a hint of amusement though.   
“I never saw you showing affection to anyone, Sou-chin, I had to see if you were even able to…” the other male explained, looking down at his nails with indifference.   
Nagisa’s face popped up from its hiding on Sousuke’s chest, and his eyebrows jumped up.  
“Huh?”   
“I suppose showing affection every now and then would ruin your unapproachable, cold, macho tsundere aesthetic,” Izanagi added, and leaned back against the chair.  
“You shut up right now, Izanagi,” Sousuke muttered, with a frown. Which disappeared almost right away, when Nagisa giggled.   
“Oi, go be lovey-dovey elsewhere!” Izanagi exclaimed, before immediately adding, “no, just kidding, stay forever. It’s just, it’s so, so lonely without you, Sou-chin!”   
“Get a roomie, no?” Sousuke replied, leaning over the table with some sincere creases of concern on his forehead.   
“They all ran from me!” Izanagi whined, and sighed. “I can’t even find a girlfriend.”  
Nagisa blinked a few times, and tilted his head.  
“But you’re fun. I’d be your roommate!” He offered, which made Izanagi light up and Sousuke widen his eyes then slowly turn his head to look down at his lover. Something bloomed in his chest, but he kept silent about it. Pointing out Nagisa’s subtext could break the spell. Had he just implied he wouldn’t mind moving to Tokyo that much now?  
“Ah, your boyfriend is so awesome, Sou-chin,” Izanagi commented, almost wistful.   
“He just doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Sousuke retorted, and glanced over at Nagisa again.   
“You are _so mean_ , Sou-chin!”

“Did you mean that?” Sousuke asked, a few hours and drinks later, while steering Nagisa towards their hotel room.   
“Eh?” Nagisa hummed, absent-minded, tilting his head instinctively as his eyes wandered in Sousuke’s direction.  
“About being Izanagi’s roommate. I mean, do you still hate the idea of moving out of Iwatobi?”  
Nagisa’s whole body tensed a little as he walked, and he bit his lip nervously with his brows knitting together.  
“You know it. I… would talk about it later on in the future. I don’t feel ready to move out yet,” he replied, low, with a certain kind of shame weighing on his words.   
Sousuke tried not to sigh. They’d discussed the topic over and over in the last months, and every time it had ended in something similar.  
“But,” Nagisa added, “if you want to move out then I can let go of you.” He turned his face the other way while saying this, and his hold onto Sousuke’s hand seemed to soften, but that did not feel nice or kind.  
Sousuke’s breath paused as a very unpleasant sense of dread elbowed for space in his chest and stomach.   
And then silence settled between them, for a long minute. The more it stretched, the more their arms seemed to get heavier and their hands’ link weaker.  
_It’s just like what happened with Rei-chan_ was probably what Nagisa was thinking about now, as he prepared to untie their hands.  
“That’s not what I said,” Sousuke finally replied, holding Nagisa’s tighter. “Look at me.” He bit his lip, frustrated. He’d realized time ago he would never get to really understand what the world had turned like, for Nagisa. That didn’t mean it was enough of a reason to try, or to just up and leave; he’d done that before, and it never made his life any better. “I mean… listen to me. _I’m not the point_ : I like working at the pool. I like Iwatobi. And if I move out, it’s going to be with you.”  
Nagisa’s head turned slightly to listen better, and his face stretched in surprise now. He hadn’t even noticed they had stopped walking, but he definitely did now, as the noise of cars and people walking had faded to a low carpet of vague sounds. The air was mostly still now, too, as opposed to the wind’s current being channeled by the buildings onto the road.   
“Why do you like me?” He finally asked, quiet.   
Sousuke blinked, taken aback as he did not expect to be asked that.  
“I don’t know. You’re cool. You’re… you’re cute, and… I don’t know, I’m not the point,” Sousuke mumbled, and shook his head. “You’re the point. You’ve got to do what you want to do. Do you hate the idea of moving out, or… do you think you’re not good enough to stand on your own two feet?”  
“ _How_ could I stand on my own two feet, Sousuke? I mean, I know _others_ live just fine with… this,” he blurted out, now frowning. His eyes glistened, wet, and his voice tottered dangerously. Sousuke still could not see his face clearly, but he could obviously tell Nagisa was a bit upset. “But I’m not _others_. I don’t know how to do it.”  
Sousuke sighed, at loss for anything to say to that. However, he looked along the walls stretching to form the small, quiet alley he’d pulled them both in to talk.  
“Are you saying you can’t?” He eventually asked, in a rhetoric tone.   
“No,” Nagisa blurted. “I don’t know,” he added, slower, and then he picked it up again. “That’s the point, I don’t know! I never knew what to do with my life, and it was hard enough to figure it out with a lot of ideas I couldn’t choose from, but then this happened and all those options just vanished, and Rei-chan left so-“  
“I’m not Ryuugazaki, and this is not the same situation, if that’s where you’re going. I haven’t got other places I want to go anyway, I’m fine in Iwatobi. I’m actually better off teaching at the ISC instead of having unstable little jobs here,” Sousuke interrupted him, and spelled out loudly, “I’m not going to leave.”  
Nagisa’s fingers balled into fists, and he sighed.   
“I… I guess there’s no reason for you to drop that job, right?” He cautiously asked, as his head timidly turned so that Sousuke could see his face. But then his stomach did a somersault. “Until you find something better, anyway…”  
Sousuke was _so_ not cut out for conversations like this one.  
“I’ll think about it when it happens, _if_ it does. It’s better to not dwell on things too much. The point is,” he started again, pinching the bridge of his nose, “the point is I like it when you’re around… I guess, sort of. So I like seeing you at the end of the day.”  
When he heard that, Nagisa’s face softened in a little smile, and he sighed.  
“I like seeing you too, at the end of the day,” he replied, even though his expression was still conflicted.   
“I guess we’ll have to take it day by day, and whatever happens can’t be helped,” Sousuke finally said, avoiding to sugarcoat his thoughts. He never had, and he would not start now. “I don’t plan on leaving you though.”  
Nagisa wasn’t sure that was enough for him. But then again, a lot of things hadn’t been certain. A few years back, he’d never imagined he would’ve been in this situation, that his story would have turned out this way, but after all if there was something positive to be found about it, it was that it had led him to find Sousuke. And that encounter had been the less likely he could’ve had imagined. It could have happened in many other ways, but there was nothing good in rejecting reality as it was right now, or double guessing it.  
“I guess,” he conceded, and sighed. “If you can accept I won’t go back to seeing, and that being with me is going to be hard…”   
Sousuke sighed, and shook his head with a shrug.  
“Others can do it and did it, so why not you and me? And like, all things considered you’re more stuff than just ‘blind’,” he replied, and then added, “actually, when I saw you last year on the beach I didn’t guess you were.”   
“Huh, I remember that,” Nagisa hummed, and smirked.   
“You’re a lot better at dealing with it than you give yourself credit for,” Sousuke continued, and then kissed the other’s forehead. “And right now, I don’t want to leave you alone. That’s it.”   
Nagisa kept quiet for a few more moments, and then he nodded. Nothing was set in stone. Thinking about the ways they could end up or keep going was quite pointless, indeed.   
“I want to go home with you,” he replied, in the end, with a smile. It was not as bright as it used to always be, but it was something.   
Sousuke nodded, and resumed their walk together towards their hotel. Tomorrow, they would finally go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I said the epilogue was going to be short I thought of like 900 words tops. Then my muse was like "SIKE" and made me write 2k to wrap it up (btw I skipped a lot of stuff in these last chapters because honestly I couldn't wait to finish this fic, sorry orz).   
> Also, I didn't plan for Izanagi to become this relevant (and I'm sorry for all the characters I didn't insert more), but I sort of grew really fond of him, even though he sounds a lot like Oikawa... hehe "XD  
> Anyway, there's something interesting I just realized: when I started writing this I had just started therapy, and I was just starting to think about getting my shit together. Now I'm doing an internship (which is not a job, but it's _something_ ), and psychologically-wise I'm doing lots better, and my back is also not being a bitch like it used to. Overall, I'm doing better, and while I think my body shape and health won't be ideal in the future either, while I'm still under meds, I'm starting to look forward regardless of that. Which is probably why this epilogue feels incomplete: I'm still a story that just started, as well. So anyway, I sort of feel like this stupid fic says a lot more about me than any other, so I'm quite fond of it. It did end up getting written with a lot of delays and bumps along the way (remember when I said I was planning to finish it for January tops hahahahaha), but I'm quite proud of myself because this time I didn't drop the thing, I got it to the end, and to me - who used to abandon multi-chaptered fics very easily - this is something to be happy about. Of course, narratively it has a lot of flaws, I'm aware of it, and maybe sometime in the future I'll feel like going back to it and fixing it, but for now I'm good with it anyway. My butt is still too lazy atm. I wanted to be done with it. So yeah, this was a thing I needed to finish, and I mainly wrote it for myself, but I hope you liked reading it as much as I liked writing it ^^ that is, if you've come this far XDDD thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> So... I'm very nervous because this is the first English fic I started writing in chapters (my native language is Italian). I'm both happy and worried about it, because I'm dealing with a physical problem myself (I wouldn't call it a disability but still it impacts my life _a lot_ anyway) and a whole lot of psychological garbage that I'm sorting out with my psychologist so to me this has become one way to work through some of that.  
>  Hopefully Nagisa won't sound OOC but will sound plausible, I really really hope so because he is my favorite and I love him a lot (if it wasn't already plenty evident by now) and I legit felt sick at having to do this to him and stayed up at night looking for something believable to make him blind (I almost deleted the entire story at one point but then thankfully [Ilana9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilana_9) brainstormed with me so thank you friend! <3). Also, I've tried imagining Nagisa as disabled, I don't really know how it's like but I hope it won't be offensive or insensitive to anybody dealing with it directly or indirectly.  
> And of course, none of the characters are mine (except for the OCs). Y'all know that. It's just fanfiction please don't lapidate me over it  
> The fic was prompted by [Akira14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akira14/) on facebook: "Sougisa, "I'm getting tired and I need someone to rely on" (Somewhere Only We Know, Keane)".  
> The title is like... the last desperate attempt at finding something that wasn't overused and was still in topic. Titles are difficult for me, please don't mind. By the way it's from Phil Collins' song "Two Worlds" in Tarzan. I don't even know how the song goes cuz I've seen the movie like once lol


End file.
